Deadly Planet
by ucsbdad
Summary: The title says it all. Our favorite duo find themselves on a planet that no one would want to intentionally visit. Can they survive?
1. Chapter 1

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

He must have been wounded. He felt pain everywhere. It must have been an IED or maybe a mortar round to cause so much damage. He tried to move. Nothing happened. He tried to open his eyes. Nothing. He took several deep breaths. Surprisingly, the pain began to recede.

He opened his eyes. There was blue sky above him with fleecy clouds.

_No angels, anyway. _He thought.

He tried to move his arms. They did nothing but flop around, but he did feel his rifle laying across his chest. He decided to take several more deep breaths. He tried again. The rifle seemed to be in one piece. More deep breaths.

He sat up. He almost fell back down, but remained sitting upright. He removed the magazine from his rifle. It was clean and fully loaded. He pulled back the bolt. It was clean with no round in the chamber. He reached forward and removed the suppressor. It was perfectly functional. He pushed his thumb into the ejection port, then looked down the barrel of his rifle. The bore was clean. He replaced the magazine and allowed the bolt to slam forward, seating a round in the chamber. He replaced the suppressor.

Now he looked around him.

_Shit. _He wasn't on the Horn of Africa anymore. He was laying on a small hill, on a vast rolling plain, dotted with stands of trees. Looking around, he discovered he wasn't alone. Another soldier was lying face down some twenty meters up the hill. The camouflage was unfamiliar to him, but he could see the butt of a weapon under him.

_Who the hell is he?_ He wondered.

His thoughts were broken by a scream. A blonde ran out of a small copse of trees, hair flying behind her. Behind her lumbered something he'd never seen before. A man in highly polished chrome armor was chasing the blonde.

"Hey, over here!" He yelled.

The woman stopped and looked around, almost allowing her pursuer to catch up with her. Then she headed up the hill at a run. She was followed by her pursuer.

The blonde ran passed him and collapsed behind him. Her pursuer stopped some thirty meters from him.

"So, you do not run. Tell me your name so that I may carve it on your skull when I have made it into a drinking cup." As he spoke, he waved what looked like a long fluorescent tube around.

"Fuck off!"

"Ah! You will die well."

He brought his rifle to his shoulder, centered the crosshairs on the man's helmeted head. There was a T shaped vision slit in the helmet. He aimed for that and slowly squeezed the trigger. The armored man fell to one knee. He took a second shot and this time the man flopped onto his back. Now he could see the man's unprotected throat. He fired one more round and saw the helmet fly off in a spray of blood and brains and go rolling down the hill.

He looked behind him. The blonde was laying on the ground, gasping for breath and the other soldier was just starting to move. He stood up and headed down the hill. As he got closer, he saw the dead man was enormous, at least seven feet tall. When he saw the face, he wondered if "man" was the right word to describe him. The hair was long and grey but turning green at the ends. One eye had been destroyed by his bullets, but the other was solid black and twice the size of any eye he'd ever seen. Worse, there were two six-inch tusks growing from the being's lower jaw.

He picked up what he assumed was the weapon. It had glowed a bright white before, but now was grey. He looked for some kind of control, but found none. Looking down, he saw that the weapon, if that's what it was, had landed on a large rock. The rock now had a deep groove scored in it. Checking, he found the weapon fit the groove perfectly. He tossed the weapon away and headed back up the hill.

He almost stepped on a magazine when he turned. He checked his ammo pouches. They were full. He examined the magazine. It appeared to be standard issue. He put it in his pocket and continued up the hill.

"What did you do?" The blonde demanded, now standing up.

"I saved your life."

"No!" She screamed. "I mean this. Why did you take me here?" She waved her arms around.

"I didn't take you anyplace. I don't know how I got here myself."

"Bullshit. I wake up in a strange place with two soldiers and you expect me to believe this isn't some deranged military plot?"

"I'm not a soldier. I'm a cop."

She not only wasn't a soldier, she wasn't a man as he'd first assumed. And she was gorgeous.

"Who are you?" The blonde snapped.

"Kate Beckett, Homicide Detective, NYPD."

"New York! That's absurd. I was in rural Virginia. I must be somewhere near there. Pennsylvania, perhaps?"

"I was in the Horn of Africa, Somaliland, to be exact." He said.

"Do you expect me to believe that? Do you know who I am?"

He just shrugged.

"I'm Janice Norwood and I'm practically a junior partner for Holmes and Bledsoe, one of the most powerful law firms in DC. Now you had better get your superiors to get me back where I belong or else. And who are you, anyway?"

"Staff Sergeant Rick Castle, Third Ranger Battalion, US Army and to repeat myself, I have no idea where we are, or how we got here."

Before anyone said anything else, there was a burst of automatic weapons fire in the distance.

"That's a SAW." He said, turning around.

"A saw?" The cop asked. "Sounds more like a machine gun."

"S-A-W. Squad automatic weapon." He grabbed his radio. "Castle to….any Ranger. Anyone."

"Castle? It's me, Lloyd. Damn, I have seen some weird shit. You won't believe it."

"You'd be surprised what I'd believe. What's your nine?"

"No idea where we are."

"We? Who's with you?"

"I've got a chick with me. Believe that?"

"I've got two."

"I am not a chick, asshole!" The blonde screamed.

Suddenly Castle saw them, coming out of the trees across the valley.

"You're coming straight for me. Just be careful. Some…thing's already tried to kill me."

"No shit. We got attacked by a six-foot tall grasshopper with an axe."

Castle just shook his head as he watched the two people cross the valley towards him.

He looked at the two women with him. The lawyer, Norwood, had on hiking boots, tan cargo pants, and a vest over a blue tee shirt. The vest appeared to have all kinds of gear on it. She also carried a backpack.

The cop wore a set of cammies of a type he didn't know, and she had a protective vest of some sort, but with an old style Kevlar pot helmet. She was armed with a pump action shotgun and an automatic pistol.

"Jesus, Sarge. What is this thing? Or what was it?" That was Lloyd and the other women. She looked like a soldier as well, cammies, protective vest and helmet as well as an assault rifle.

"I have no fucking idea. Who's your friend?"

The woman smiled at him. "Corporal Anna Livovna Konev, Ukrainian 501st Separate Battalion of Naval Infantry. I am a combat medic."

"Glad to have you with us, Corporal."

"I'm glad to be with an American unit where everyone speaks excellent Ukrainian."

That stopped Castle for a second.

"What? I'm sorry, but I don't speak Ukrainian and you've been speaking English."

Konev shook her head. "I speak only a few words of English."

"I speak Russian." That was the cop, Beckett. "Where are you from in Ukraine?" Her eyes widened in shock. "That came out in English."

"Are you all out of your minds?" Norwood screamed. "Have you ever been to France?" She stopped and looked around her. "I spoke French. Why did it come out as English?"

"We can deal with this later." Castle interrupted. "I want to get to the top of this hill and see if anyone else is around." Everyone followed him up the hill, including Norwood, who did lag behind.

The hill was covered in trees, but they found a place where they could see in both directions across the valley they'd been in and one on the other side of the hill. The other valley with had small stream running through it.

"No one here." Castle grabbed his radio again. "Sergeant Castle to any Rangers. Anyone. Anyone at all, dammit."

He got back a babble of voices, all trying to talk at once.

"Shut up, dammit. Does anyone know where they are? Can you see anyone else?"

No one could.

"Okay, I'm going to pop a flare. I'll wait five minutes and pop another one. Pay attention out there."

He grabbed a flare and shot it off.

"Oh, shit!"

"What is it? Didn't the flare work?" Lloyd asked.

"It worked, but look up there."

"What the hell are those?"

"I'd say they're moons. A nice red one and a nice green one."

"I don't think Earth has two moons." Konev said.

"I know it doesn't." Castle said.

"So were on another planet? Like Mars?"

"No other planet in our solar system has a breathable atmosphere. We're in another solar system."

"That's impossible!" Yelled Norwood. "We haven't gotten past our own Moon. This I some kind of trick. It's special effects. It's a fake."

"Special effects are done with green screens and computers. Do you see any of those?"

"Hey!" Beckett yelled. "Someone's coming."

Across the valley in front of them two men came out of the tree line not fifty meters from each other. They stood in the open valley and looked around.

"Hey, I can flash my shaving mirror at them." Lloyd started digging in his pack.

"It's supposed to be a signal mirror, Lloyd." Castle snapped.

"Yeah? Well it works two ways, just like the can opener that fits on the end of my rifle."

When the men got closer, Castle recognized them.

"It's van Ott and Tomassi."

"Great. Alpha fire team just needs Gurwich to be complete."

"And there he is, running to catch up. And they see your mirror. They're waving and heading this way." Castle grabbed the radio again. "Listen up, everyone. Be careful. We've had two strange things try to kill us."

Beckett spoke. "Someone's coming. Right behind us."

Castle turned around.

"Doc Ryan and he's got a woman with him."

Ryan and the woman stopped to look at the dead…whatever, as well.

"What the hell…"Ryan began.

"No fucking idea. But it wanted to kill us. Who's your friend?"

The woman was stocky and looked to be thirtyish with short, dark hair under a Red Man tobacco ball cap. Boots, blue jeans and a camo jacket complimented a rifle over her shoulder and two pistols.

"Name's Sharon Hayes. How the fuck did I get here and what the fuck is going on?"

"I wish I knew. What were you doing and where are you from?"

"I'm from Zapata County, Texas, along the Rio Grande. I was out hunting deer and all of a sudden, I'm here. Where ever here is."

"Your weapons and ammo?" Castle asked.

"I got me a Remington 7mm rifle with four rounds in the magazine and one up the spout and twenty on my belt. Plus a hundred more in my backpack. I carry a Colt 1911A1 with four spare mags and a box of fifty rounds in my pack. And I got a .22 caliber Colt pistol. I carry that for snakes and use birdshot. Got two days' worth of food and water, too."

"You got a lot of weapons and ammo for just hunting deer."


	2. Chapter 2

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

She shrugged. "I live on the fucking border. There's a lot bad of shit goes on there. And, I was in the Army. Four years. Two tours in Iraq."

"What was your MOS?"

"56M."

He frowned. "What's that?"

"Chaplains' assistant."

That brought a laugh from the soldiers.

"Hey, Father Tom didn't stay back in the rear with the beer. He was out among 'em, as he used to say. I had to keep the jihadis off of his pacifist ass."

"Okay. Good to have you here, Ms. Hayes."

"Sharon. Call me Sharon."

"And you can call me Sergeant."

Another five minutes had passed. He fired another flare. That got an immediate response.

"We see you." The radio barked.

"That you, Glesko?"

"Yeah. I found my fire team in here. Wait one. Damn. We just came out of the trees. We can see you."

"Two more coming from behind us." Ryan said.

Castle looked through his scope. Two soldiers slogged towards them, loaded down with weapons and ammo.

"A machine gun team. Looks like the Moronta twins from B Company."

Like the others, they stopped and looked at the dead being on the hill. The two machine gunners arrived at the same time as the second fire team.

"Damned good to see you all." Castle said. "I hope there are more out there. I'm going to fire another flare in another five minutes."

"What the fuck is that dead thing down there, Sarge?" Eugenio Moronta asked, dropping the machine gun from his shoulder to the ground.

"It was chasing Ms. Norwood, the blonde, and wanted to make a cup out my skull."

"I didn't hear him threaten you." Norwood said sharply.

"I did." Beckett said. "He clearly made a threat of death or serious bodily injury."

"You'd side with them, wouldn't you?"

"Those two are twins? Don't much look like it." Said Hayes.

He had a point. Eugenio was tall, slim, fair and blue eyed. Reyes was short, squat, and dark.

"It's a joke." Castle said. "They were born the same day and enlisted the same day. Eugenio's people are originally from Cuba, and Reyes' are from Guatemala. They are both machine gunners, but Reyes is only an E-3 since he broke a leg in Ranger training and had to go through again. That makes him the AG, the assistant gunner."

"Two more." Ryan said. "They're a ways away from here, just standing and looking around."

"Flash the mirror at them."

Lloyd did so and the two men headed for them.

"I still can't make out who they are."

Hayes started going through her backpack.

"I got some binoculars you can use, Sarge. Good ones."

He took the binoculars and looked them over.

"It's an M 22. These are military issue."

"I bought them on line." Hayes replied. "You need them worse than I do. Keep them, at least until we get the fuck out of here."

He looked at the two men approaching. One carried a big rifle, and he could see their ghillie suits slung around them.

"Sniper team. One of them's got an M 24 rifle, I'm betting. The other has an M 110. I don't recognize them, but I'm glad they're here. Once they reach us, I'll pop another flare."

The two snipers trotted most of the way and made it to the top of the hill quickly.

"Who are you?" Castle asked.

"Sergeant Javier Esposito, sniper team leader, Second Ranger Battalion. This is my spotter Sgt. Bill Milton."

"Where were you before you were here?"

"We just graduated from sniper school and the battalion sent us out to the Yakima Training Center to make sure we knew what we were doing. We went to sleep at night and woke up here. And where is here?"

"Look behind you and up."

"What are those things?"

"I figure they're moons and that means we're on another planet. Do you have any ideas about what happened?"

"I saw this movie once. It did not end well." Milton said.

"This isn't a movie."

"That doesn't mean it'll end well."

"Maybe not, but I've got something else to show all of you. Come with me."

He led them down the hill to the dead being and explained what had happened. Everyone looked at it, but only Doc Ryan had the guts to touch it.

"It's not human." He concluded.

"We saw worse than that." Lloyd said and told about being attacked by a giant axe wielding grasshopper.

"Damn!" Doc replied. "I saw a huge flea in the woods. Three feet long if it was an inch."

"One more thing, when I went to go back up the hill, I found a loaded magazine. Anyone drop one?"

"Shit." Lloyd said. "Just after I greased the grasshopper, I found a fifty-round belt for my SAW. I thought someone had dropped it."

Everyone said they had all the ammo they'd started with.

Castle nodded. "Okay. That either means there are other soldiers around here, or we're getting rewarded for staying alive. Either one would be good." He checked the position of the sun. "We'll go back to the top of the hill since it's getting late. We'll set up a night defensive position and I'll pop another flare."

"That might attract unfriendlies." Esposito said.

"Or friends." Castle replied.

Once back on top they found an open space surrounded by enough trees to give them good cover. Castle popped another flare and waited.

"Okay, most of you are from my squad and I know you, but I want to make sure we're all on the same page. Ms. Norwood, do you have food, water, a medical kit or a weapon."

The blonde glared at him. Then she spoke.

"I have a full canteen, two quart bottles of water, three day's-worth of freeze dried food, a first aid kit and a small knife. I don't have a gun. I don't believe in them."

That last got a chuckle from everyone.

"Okay, Corporal Konev. Same question."

"I have two days food and a liter of water. I am a medic so I have my medical bag."

"Okay, get with Sergeant Ryan so each one knows what we have. Weapons?"

"I have a new Ukrainian assault rifle, kind of a cross between a Kalashnikov and your M 16, but it uses your new 6.8 mm cartridge. I have seven 30 round clips. I also carry an M 17 Sig, just like yours. I have one of your protective vests, and a German helmet, night vision goggles but no radio. I also have this." She turned around show a weapon strapped to her back pack. "It's a pump action 40mm grenade launcher. We were training and we had a simulated casualty. He had to be carried to an aid station, so I was asked to carry his grenade launcher. It has three in it and I have a bandolier of 12 grenades. It fires the same grenades as your weapons."

Castle nodded. "The extra firepower will come in handy. Now, Detective Beckett. Is that what the well- dressed homicide detective wears?"

"All hell broke loose in Manhattan today. We had every SWAT team committed and then a couple of heavily armed nuts broke into an apartment building and started shooting up the neighborhood. We were fitted out and sent in since there was no one else. I have a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun with eight rounds in the magazine and I've got a box of twenty five in my backpack. I carry a Glock 17 with three spare clips, and I have a backup Glock 26 with three clips, both 9 millimeter. I have two bottles of water and about a dozen energy bars. No first aid kit."

"That's an NYPD issue Kevlar ® vest? No SAPI plates? Small arms protective inserts?"

She nodded.

Castle frowned. "Your vest will stop slow moving projectiles like pistol bullets or shotgun slugs, but not high velocity military bullets. Not like our vests can."

Beckett shrugged. "It's what the NYPD issued."

"Ms. Hayes, same question."

She explained again what weapons and ammo she had. She also had a Camelback canteen and three days' worth of food. "I got some first class dehydrated foods from over at Bass Pro Shops. They're a hell of a lot better than your shitty MREs."

"Okay, I'm Staff Sergeant Rick Castle and this is my squad. We were in Somaliland, which is the northern part of Somalia. They've seceded from Somalia, but no one accepts them as a country. However, the landlocked Ethiopians are building a railroad to their port of Berbera. We were providing security for a team of engineers, intelligence types and Special Forces checking the place out."

"Just like good little neo-colonialists." Norwood snapped. Everyone ignored her.

"There are nine men in a squad and, unusually, we have nine actually with us. We have two fireteams, led by Sergeants van Ott and Glesko." Both men raised their hands. "They and I carry the M 51 assault rifle, firing a 6.8mm round. Next are the two squad automatic weapons gunners, or SAWs. Think of them as light machine guns firing the same rounds as the M 51. The gunners are Specialists Lloyd and Johnson." The two also raised their hands. "We have two grenadiers. They carry an M 51 with an underslung 40mm grenade launcher. They are Specialists Tomassi and Bravin. "Both also raised their hands. "Last but not least, we have Specialists Gurwich and Preece. They're our designated marksmen. They carry the M 110D semi-automatic sniper rifle, although they aren't snipers. It fires the same 7.62mm round as our machine gun."

"We have five others in addition to my squad. Staff Sergeant "Doc" Ryan is a medic. He's been a grunt so long that fresh, hot coffee and real food makes him nauseous. He has an M 51 as well."

Ryan replied by giving Castle the one finger salute.

"We have a machine gun team, Sergeant Moronta and Specialist Moronta, who are not related, despite being called twins. Their weapon is an M 240 medium machine gun which fires a NATO 7.62 by 51 millimeter cartridge. Specialist Moronta also has an M 51."

"We each also have M 17 Sig 9mm pistols, plus at least one M67 hand grenade apiece, plus smoke grenades and flares."

"We also have a sniper team, Sergeants Esposito and Milton. What weapons do you two have, Sergeant?"

Esposito smiled. "I carry the M24A3 sniper rifle using the .338 Lapua Magnum round. It's accurate out to at least 1500 meters, although I've hit targets out to 1800. My spotter carries the M 110D, same as the marksmen, but with a better sight and match grade ammo. He can hit you out to a thousand meters. We've both got an M 17 Sig and lots of other sniper toys."

Ryan raised his hand. "I have a question. How many trained CLS's do we have and how many kits?"

Johnson, Preece and Tomassi raised their hands as did Reyes Moronta and both snipers.

"You all have the CLS kit?"

The men nodded.

"What's a CLS?" Beckett asked.

"A combat lifesaver. A medic light, if you will. They're given training in handling the kinds of trauma you find in combat."

"Okay, people." Castle said. "The sun's going down. We'll eat and stay here, back in the trees a bit to give us cover. There'll be no fires after dark, so if you have stoves, use 'em now."

They broke up into groups, trading parts of their meals back and forth. Norwood, however, moved away and began eating by herself.

"Detective Beckett, you have only energy bars?"

" 'Fraid so."

"I have an MRE and a part of a First Strike ration. You're welcome to the MRE. It's beef stew."

She shook her head. "I couldn't take your food. You need it."

"And I have to take care of my people. I'm in charge."

Hayes threw something to Beckett.

"Take it, Beckett. It's chili and I've eaten real, honest to God Tex-Mex chili and this don't compare."

"Ms. Hayes…"

"Call me Sharon and take it." She looked straight at Norwood. "If we don't fucking cooperate and take care of each other, we're all going straight to hell."

Norwood ignored her.


	3. Chapter 3

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

"Thanks, Sharon. Okay, Sergeant. Between all of this, we should eat well."

"Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective? It's instant, I'm afraid."

"Coffee? I'd love some. I might die without coffee. And please call me Kate."

"I have a little Coleman ® stove. I'll light it up and heat some water. We can use it for the coffee and for your dehydrated chili."

Castle got busy making dinner.

After dinner, the sun was just going down and Castle had just shot off another flare. Ryan spoke.

"Anyone have any idea what's going on here?"

Milton answered. "Like I said. It's that old movie where these bad assed dudes get sent to a planet and get hunted by these _really_ bad assed dudes. They can make themselves invisible and all sorts of cool shit."

"So far what we've seen aren't really bad dudes. They're dead assed dudes." Esposito replied.

Milton shrugged. "Maybe we're the really bad assed dudes."

"Maybe it's like 2001." That was Ryan. "But different. Thousands of years ago aliens came to Earth and other places and set up machines to send stuff back and forth. But when they left, they forgot to turn them off. After thousands of years, the machines are all wonky. Sending shit all over the place. I mean, people and shit disappear all the time on Earth."

"I bet there's a billion mismatched socks on this planet." Someone muttered.

"What do you think, Sarge?" Van Ott asked.

Castle shrugged.

"No idea."

"None at all?"

"Well, maybe this is some teenage extraterrestrial's high school science project. He's in orbit in his daddy's spaceship showing off to his girlfriend and trying to grab one of her six boobs."

That got a laugh.

"Okay, people. No noise and no lights tonight. And I want two men on watch, two hours each team. I've got the roster ready."

Once the sentries were set, Castle got ready for some sleep.

"You just have that jacket, Kate?"

"I'll be okay. It's been pretty hot today."

He tossed her something.

"This is a woobie, a military poncho liner. It'll keep you warm and dry. I've got a field jacket, gloves and a watch cap to keep me warm. And I'm more used to sleeping like this than you are."

Beckett thanked him and rolled into the woobie.

Castle had trained himself to wake up on cue. So, every two hours, when the watches changed, he woke up. At about 2 AM, he heard two men talking.

"Do you think we should wake the sergeant?"

He moved over to them.

"I am awake. What is it?"

"We got a thermal imager from the snipers. We got heat sources across the valley, in the trees. Here, look."

Castle could tell that there was something moving over there, but not what it was. Soon the images disappeared.

"It could be anything." Preece said.

"Yeah." Castle replied. "It could be a bunch of cuddly pandas, some tyrannosaurus rexes or a whole battalion of people coming to wax our asses. Keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything."

He went back to sleep.

He woke up again just at dawn and began waking everyone up.

"Everyone up. We'll eat and then head down and follow the stream and see where it leads us."

"Wait a minute." Cried Norwood. "This is an important decision. You can't just unilaterally decide where we're going."

"Actually, I can. These men are soldiers and they take orders from me. In fact, as far as I know, I'm the senior American commander on this entire planet."

"So they'll be good little military robots. What about the rest of us?"

Konev spoke up." I'm also a soldier. I follow the sergeant."

Beckett and Hayes said, "Me, too.", simultaneously.

The blonde glared at them.

"Okay then. I'm with you, but not of you. Understand?"

Castle nodded. "Whatever that means."

"Sarge, we got something else to think about." That was van Ott. He pointed down the little valley. "I'll swear that wasn't there ten seconds ago."

Castle took out his binoculars and looked down the valley.

"Looks like cases of MREs, water and something else. Hard to tell." He put down the binoculars. "It could be our friendly logistics, or maybe a trap. Anyone here been to sapper school?"

Milton raised his hand. "That's me. I got a talent for mischief."

Castle nodded. "Okay, people. Somebody took a lot of trouble to put some heavily armed people on this planet." He smiled." And one lawyer. This may be a trap or an ambush. Maybe not, but we'll be careful. Milton is on point, then Alpha fire team with Doc Ryan, then the command group, that's me. Next is the machine gun team, then Sgt. Esposito and Milton with Sharon. Then Bravo team with Konev. Beckett is with me. Norwood can go where ever she pleases. Okay. Keep your heads on swivels. Any questions?"

There were none.

"Okay. Move."

They went down the hill and into the small valley in single file, moving slowly. When they got within fifty meters of the cases, Milton put the bayonet on the end of his rifle and began slowly probing the ground ahead of him. Eventually, he reached the cases. He took out a length of parachute cord and made a noose. He tossed it around a cardboard case and pulled. Nothing happened. He moved among the supplies.

"Looks like we got MRE's, First Strikes, civilian food like Sharon has, plus some canned food. We also got bottled water, Gatorade ® and energy drinks. We also have batteries for our electronics. Looks good. Come on in."

Castle looked everything over.

"I'd say we have three days' worth of food here, maybe four. We'll divide everything up evenly."

"Evenly?" Glesko asked, looking at Norwood.

"Yeah. Evenly. We all either get out together or we don't, but we stay together, like it or not."

He had the two fire team leaders handle distribution.

"We've answered one question with this. A dropped magazine or a belt of ammo could be an accident, some other poor bastards on this planet, but not this. Someone wants us on this planet and wants us to stay alive. At least for a while. This was no accident, but we still don't know why we're here."

They finished stocking up and continued to march with Milton going back to his partner and Lloyd taking point. They had been marching for an hour when Lloyd suddenly motioned the to stop. Castle went forward to see what he'd found.

"Look over there, Sarge. Fucking picnic tables?"

He pulled out his binoculars. It did look like a dozen tables with round umbrellas over them.

"We'll go take a look."

They approached very slowly, then Hayes called out.

"Don't nobody get any closer."

She picked up a rock and threw it at a "table". The umbrella snapped down, hard.

"You can see some animal and bird bones beneath those things. Like big fucking Venus fly traps."

"Shit." Someone muttered. "Even the trees try to kill you."

They gave the trees a wide berth and continued to march. After stopping for lunch, they reorganized. Alpha and Bravo teams switched places. Everything else remained the same.

Castle heard several loud pops, followed by a wall of white particles. As soon as they hit him, he felt like he was on fire. His exposed skin felt like it was burning, his nose, mouth and eyes burned. He heard yelling and gunfire. His eyes puffed up so badly he couldn't see. He used one hand to pry his right eye open. There was a multi-toothed horror in front of him. He lifted his rifle one handed and fired at it. He could rear the roar of Beckett's shotgun near him and the differing sounds of the SAWs and machine gun. He also heard the pop of the grenade launchers.

Ryan screamed. "Get the wounded back! Everyone back."

Castle could no longer hold his eye open. It was too painful.

"What's happening? Someone tell me!"

He felt an arm around him. Beckett.

"We need to get you away. You look like you have the world's worst sunburn."

He tried to push her away, but he was in too much pain.

Meanwhile, Sergeant van Ott took charge.

"It's back in its hole. Somebody give me another couple of grenades. Grenadiers, load with Willy Peter. Konev, do you have white phosphorus grenades for that thing?"

"No, Sergeant."

"Get one from Tomassi. I'm going to toss two grenades in the hole. As soon as they go off, fire your Willie Peter in the hole and then run like hell. Got that?"

"Got it." The three yelled.

Castle heard the thump of the frags and then the pop of the grenade launchers. Then an ear-splitting scream followed by more gunfire.

Finally van Ott yelled.

"Cease firing. Cease firing, dammit. Lloyd, get your ass over there and put a couple of bursts into what's left of the thing's head."

Castle found himself being pushed down. Then something cool was hitting his face. He managed to open one eye long enough to see Beckett bathing his face with bottled water.

"What happened?' He demanded.

"Something, something big jumped out of a hole and came after us when the white cloud of…whatever hit us."

"Casualties?"

He heard Ryan reply to that.

"Johnson was on point. He got a burst from the SAW right into the bastard's mouth and got knocked on his ass for his trouble. He's got cuts and bruises. He was too close to get hit by whatever the powder was. The rest of Bravo is like you. Suffering from whatever that powder was. How are you?"

He opened one eye briefly. "A little better. My face is better and my hands where Kate washed them off. My eyes, nose, mouth and lungs still feel like they're on fire."

"Okay, Beckett, try washing his eyes and let him swirl some water in his mouth and spit out. We'll have to see what happens with your lungs. We'll be staying here for the rest of the day and the night."

"Do we have to, Doc?"

"We have no idea what that white shit was or what it'll do to you. So, yeah, we have to stay here until we see how everyone is."

"Okay, but move everyone into the trees so were in cover."

The injured were led to the trees. Beckett put Castle on the ground on top of his woobie.

"Just relax. We need to get you and everyone better. I'm going to wash your eyes and let you try to wash out your mouth. After that, we wait."

"I guess we can't wash my lungs out."

She laughed. "You think?"

Once Beckett was done, Castle tried to relax. He decided to get up but was pushed back down gently, but firmly by Beckett.

"This is my squad. I need to find out what's happening."

"You know what's happening. We're treating the injured."

"How come you didn't get hit? You were right behind me."

"I was coming up to talk to you and was right behind you. You took the brunt of the white powder. I just got a little on my arm. So relax. If we're lucky, you can see and hear what happened tomorrow."

Castle didn't want to think about what would happen if they weren't lucky. Much against his will, he tried to relax. In the late afternoon, Beckett made them dinner.

"We're not too sure what you should eat, so Doc Ryan suggested soup. I traded with Sharon for some potato cheddar soup and if you're a good boy, she gave us a packet of chocolate mudslide pudding. Just add water and eat. If you don't want any, I'll eat it all."

"Chocolate? I'll eat it if it kills me."

"That's not the idea, soldier." She teased.

They had dinner, including pudding, and Castle decided that if he ever got out of here, he'd buy lots of chocolate mudslide pudding. Then Kate began to make some coffee.

"Kate, how did you end up a cop?"


	4. Chapter 4

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

She continued making the coffee for a minute to have time to think.

"Is it that odd that I'm a cop?"

He nodded. "Listening to you, there's no bridge and tunnel, which means Manhattan. And that means money. Maybe not the super rich, but money none the less. You went to college, probably a good one. But, beautiful, well educated women become lawyers, not cops. Something happened. What was it?"

"How do you know I just didn't want to become another Norwood?"

"No matter what you did, you'd never be Norwood. What happened?"

She didn't speak for a long minute.

"You're right. My parents were both lawyers. Not super rich, but we had money. I went to Stuyvesant High School and then Stanford, pre-law. I was home for Christmas break when my mother was murdered. "

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No, I don't mind telling you. She was stabbed to death. She still had her money and jewelry and it wasn't a sexual assault. The police wrote it off as random gang violence. They hardly even tried to solve it. I dropped out of Stanford and went to the New York PD Police Academy. I spent three years going over her case and finally had to quit. I decided if I couldn't solve her case, I could at least get some closure for others. I became a homicide cop less than a week ago. Now I don't know if we'll ever get off of this planet."

"If there's a way, Kate, I'll get us off."

She smiled.

"Thanks. Now, would you like some coffee? You feel up to it?"

Castle and the others felt much better the next day.

"You want to go see what we ran into yesterday?" Van Ott asked.

Castle got to his feet, slowly, and then took a deep breath. He felt good.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

With Kate staying right with him, they walked away from the trees.

"Take a look at this, but don't touch." Van Ott said, pointing down.

There was a thin grey line of something. It was attached to a bulbous looking plant with pods of white powder covering it. The other end of the grey line ran towards the hole the creature had come out of.

"There are dozens of these things around, Sarge. And they all have lines, or strings, leading back to the thing's lair. We're not sure if tripping the line sets off the pods and alerts the thing that dinner is here, or if the thing senses company and sets off the pods. Not that anyone wants to find out."

The three went around the pods to what was left of the thing.

"It's huge." Castle said.

Van Ott agreed. "About ten feet long and three feet tall when it's flat on its stomach like it is now. It's got five legs on each side and two big claws in front. Kind of like a cross between a spider and a scorpion."

"Yeah, on steroids."

"And watch out for the little white worms. They're carrion eaters. They've been chewing away on the thing since daybreak, at least."

"Let's get the hell out of here."

When they got back to the trees, everyone was waiting for them.

"Good news." Ryan said. "Take a look down the valley. Looks like our logistics people are still at it."

Before they could move, Norwood began screaming.

"I hate this place. I can't do this any longer. Get me out of here. Please get me out of here. Now!"

She went on and on.

To everyone's surprise, it was Milton that knelt beside her and began talking to her.

"Look, we know you're scared and unhappy. We all are, but you heard Sergeant Castle yesterday. We're all in this together. All of us, you included. We're going to take care of each other. And you've got the best soldiers in the world on your side. The best trained, best equipped, best armed, best led combat troops anywhere are right here with you."

Eventually, as Milton went on, Norwood stopped crying and got up. They both went to Esposito and the whole group went down the valley.

"They sent us an ammo resupply." Castle said, looking over the supplies. "More than we used yesterday, I think. And more bottled water."

"And meds." Ryan added.

"One thing they're not sending us, though." Beckett said. "You've got four women here. Sooner or later, we're going to start our periods. In my case, sooner."

"We'll use toilet paper, I guess." Hayes said. "My redneck great granny made a kind of a diaper out of cloth from old flour bags back in the day. Kinda messy, though."

As they continued to march, Castle called Milton up to him.

"How's she doing?"

He shrugged.

"As good as can be expected, I guess. I've never been on a strange planet with all this strange shit either so it's hard to tell."

"How'd you know we were all combat vets?"

Milton laughed. "I didn't, but I thought it'd make her feel better."

In late afternoon, they saw something in the tree line across valley.

"Looks like deer." Esposito said. "I can drop one of them easy. It'd be good to get some fresh meat."

Castle studied them with his binoculars.

"Not like any deer I've ever heard of. They have a big horn in the center of the head in addition to the antlers. Like a unicorn, maybe. And they've got six legs. Maybe they're good to eat, maybe they're poison. And maybe if we shoot at them a thousand more will come tear-assing at us shooting napalm from the horn. Let's not shoot anything around here until we know what we're doing."

They settled down again in a copse of trees at sundown and spent a peaceful night.

As they marched along the stream it gradually widened into a river and the valley also became broader and the hills shorter. Finally, they reached a vast plain. Castle scanned the plain with his binoculars.

"There's trees and other greenery along the banks of the river, but nothing but grass on the plains. No sign of any other life."

"How about we take a bath in the river." Esposito suggested. "We're getting a little ripe. We could use it."

That idea lasted only a few minutes. Castle knew something was wrong when he heard a burst of gunfire and heard Konev scream.

"What happened?" He demanded, pushing through a crowd of people.

"That." Konev said, pointing.

That was an enormous eel that seemed to be all mouth and teeth.

"It has legs, too." Konev said. "It shot right out of the water and came at me. I just managed to get a burst into its head."

Before anything else could happen, another eel shot out of the water and dragged the dead one into the water. By reflex, Konev fired at that one. Standing by the river bank they could see a dozen eels and other predators tearing into the flesh of the dead and the still living. Konev raised her assault rifle.

"Don't bother." Castle ordered. "There are too many of them." He turned to his people. "No baths until we reach maybe a hotel with hot water and soap, and even then, we keep our weapons with us. Now, move out."

Not unexpectedly they found two fully loaded magazines a hundred yards further on. Castle gave them both to Konev.

They stayed that night in a small gully in the middle of the plain. After dinner, Kate made coffee for her and Castle as had become a custom.

"Okay, I've told you my story, now how about yours? How did Rick Castle end up a soldier?"

"It's a long story."

"We have time. I checked and my social calendar is clear for quite a while."

"I started to write when I was in high school. I knew I wanted to be a writer. After high school I went to City College of New York as an English major. My girlfriend, Kyra, would come over and I'd write and she'd read it and critique it. When it was finished, I started sending _In a Hail of Bullets_ to publishers. I got nineteen rejections before Black Pawn picked it up. I was ecstatic. I got a fifteen-hundred dollar advance. I thought that was all the money in the world." Castle stopped and looked up into the unfamiliar constellations in the night sky.

"What happened?" Kate prodded.

"The book sold 847 copies. I don't know how many of those my mother bought. Black Pawn declined to publish my next book. In addition, Kyra went to London. She said she needed some space. But, I knew that she had given in to her mother. Her mother hated me. Wanted Kyra to marry someone with money, not some struggling writer. "

"She didn't deserve you." Kate said.

"I was at loose ends. Then I talked to an editor I knew at Black Pawn. He told me that my problem was that I was writing about things I knew nothing about. Here I was a nineteen-year old kid writing about some tough as nails private eye. What did I know about that kind of life?"

"I guess that pushed me into joining the Army. I found out I was good at it. Enjoyed it. And I met Meredith. She loved being the girlfriend of an Army Ranger. And she found she hated it when I went downrange. When my enlistment was up, she insisted I get out."

"I was accepted at Rutgers as an English major. Meredith wanted me to be pre-med, or pre-law, business or computer science. Something that would make money. And I found that I could write short stories about things that had happened in the military, but I couldn't come up with a fictional book. Between that and arguing with Meredith, I spent a lot of time drinking beer with other vets on campus. One day I found Meredith was packing up and moving in with a pre-law student. I dropped out of school, and reenlisted. And here I am."

"Do you think things worked out for the best?"

He smiled. "When we get back, I'll have a hell of a story to write."

"If I don't beat you to it." She teased.

They all set out the next day, crossing the plain.

"In the sky!" Glesko yelled, pointing.

"Birds?" Someone asked.

Castle checked them with the binoculars.

"Hard to tell with nothing to compare them to, but they look big."

"My laser rangefinder says they're fifteen hundred feet up. As a guess, their wingspan is maybe thirty or forty feet." Esposito called out.

"There!" Castle said. "I saw the sun flash off something. Metal maybe."

As they watched, the birds began flying in a circle. They counted sixteen of them. Then they began heading for the humans far below.

"You think they're coming to visit?" Hayes said.

Once over the humans, they went into a steep dive. They saw puffs of grey smoke and heard bullets zip by them. Bravin yelled and went down.

"They're shooting at us. Fire!" Castle yelled.

They fired at the birds with seemingly no effect. Then the birds gained altitude and went back in a circle high above them. Only Esposito had a weapon that could reach them, and he cursed as he seemingly got no hits.

"How many wounded?" Castle yelled.

"Three!" Ryan yelled back.

"Two." Reyes Moronta yelled. "My chicken plate stopped one. it knocked me on my ass, but I'm okay."

The birds began to dive again, firing as they dove. Then one bird exploded in flames and slowly fell to the ground. The other birds gained altitude and went into a circle again. After five minutes, they headed away.


	5. Chapter 5

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

"Wounded?" Castle demanded.

"Bravin got hit in the arm." Ryan said as Castle walked over to where he was working on the wounded man. "It looks like he got hit with buckshot." He held out a small, round shot. " I wish to hell I had an X-ray machine, but I think it's not broken, but maybe a hairline fracture. I'm going to splint him and hope for the best."

Castle then went to where Konev was working on Gurwich.

"How is he?"

"He got hit in the face. It gave him a nasty scrape, and a lost some blood, but I don't think it's too bad."

"So, we were lucky?"

"So far."

"Okay, when we can all move, we'll go check out the dead one. How the hell did it catch on fire. Were those drones?"

"Hydrogen." That was Norwood.

"Hydrogen?"

"Yeah. I had a boyfriend who was into hot air balloons. He taught me all about hot air balloons, helium balloons and hydrogen balloons. You don't want to use hydrogen, 'cause it burns like hell. Remember the _Hindenburg_ back in the thirties?"

"Let's take a look."

The bird had crashed some fifty yards away.

"Who shot it?" Castle asked.

"I think it was me. "Konev said. "I used the grenade launcher and used an armor piercing, hollow charge round."

They looked it over.

"Looks like it took a hit on what's maybe the breastbone." Espo said. "The hollow charge would have blasted right up into him."

"Look on top of the breastbone." Norwood said. "You can still see some small cells. I'll bet this thing can use water to make into hydrogen and oxygen. It pumps the hydrogen in these little cells for lift and uses its wings for propulsion."

"They've got leather straps to hold their gear." Castle noticed.

"I got his weapon." Preece said. "It's a god damned matchlock musket."

"Okay, Preece. What's a matchlock musket and how do you know about it?"

"Easy, Sarge. Senior year of high school we took a field trip to Jamestown, Virginia, the first English colony in the US. It was a great trip. Going back in the dark, I was sitting next to Mary Lou Breithaupt. She was hot and real…"

"Preece! The God damned musket!"

"Oh, yeah. Jamestown has people who live and dress like the real colonists lived. They have bakers, candle makers, and one guy was a soldier. He told me all about matchlock muskets. They soaked a length of twine in something, I forget what, so it burns really slow, with no flame. They called it a slow match. See? You can see one on the musket." He held out the dead alien's weapon. "You put the match in one end of this lever thing, and when you pull the trigger, it pushes the slow match down into this hole, which has the black powder in it. Then the gun shoots."

Castle examined the dead alien's remains. He had a powder horn carved from wood, a bag of bullets, mostly buckshot, a short sword, and some other unknown articles.

"There are people on this planet who want to kill us. Maybe we're better armed than the flying things, but we took casualties today and if the whole planet is like this, they can whittle us down. We have got to stick together. Agreed?"

When they came to another gully, they found more supplies waiting for them. More ammo, food and water and something they hadn't expected.

"Tampons?" Castle said.

"Our prayers are answered. "Beckett said.

"Maybe they are." Castle said. Then he raised his voice. "If you guys are listening, how about four sets of combat gear for the ladies? And maybe a mortar? A recoilless rifle would be nice. How about a tank and a couple of infantry fighting vehicles? And if you could, send the whole military force of NATO, the Israelis, the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Australians and the New Zealanders. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know."

"Do you think that'll be enough?" Kate asked with a smile.

Castle frowned. "And add the Swiss, the Swedes, the Finns,. and the Irish to that."

"Do you think we'll get anything?"

He shrugged. "Can't hurt to ask, I hope."

It was close to the end of the day when the point man motioned for everyone to stop. As everyone took cover, Castle went to see what it was."

"What've you got, Tomassi?"

Tomassi pointed off to his right.

"On that little rise over there. What does that look like to you?"

Castle pulled out his binoculars.

"Those look like firing slits. Could be a bunker. Question is, is there anyone at home?"

"One way to find out, Sarge."

Castle brought the rest of his people up and explained what they'd found.

"Alpha team will go check it out. The rest of us will form a semicircle so we can support Alpha. Be damned sure you don't shoot any of our people. I don't want any friendly fire. Got that?"

The next five minutes were nerve wracking, but eventually nothing happened. They reached the bunker without anything happening. Van Ott yelled back that it was empty.

Castle examined the bunker.

"Firing slits covering every approach. And it's built with heavy wooden beams holding up the roof. Those must have been a bitch to move from the nearest forest."

"Unless the folks who built it are really big." Bravin said.

"No," Castle said. "Look at the height and width of the entrance. And where the firing slits are. This was built for someone about human sized. Maybe they had vehicles or maybe there were a lot of them. There could be more bunkers around here. Anyway, this is a good place to stop for the night. It'll be good to have a solid roof over our heads and nice thick walls."

"We looked around before we came in." Van Ott said. "No sign of vehicle tracks."

"Maybe they used helicopters, or something else. Weird things happen on this planet."

Everyone agreed with that.

The next morning, they left, unhappy that they had to leave the comfort and safety of the bunker, but convinced they had to keep moving.

They were attacked almost within sight of the bunker. Twelve mounted beings exploded out of a gully and began firing at them. When Castle's troops returned fire, they quickly realized they were outgunned, but by then it was too late. They, and their mounts, were cut down.

"Wounded?" Castle yelled.

"Two!" Ryan yelled back.

"How bad?"

"Give us a second, dammit."

He went to examine the dead enemies. They were clad in dirty grey robes and looked like they were made out of oversized pipe cleaners. They had long narrow heads and sharp teeth. They had been ridding somethings that looked like a cross between a long-legged sheep with the head, and mouth of an alligator. When he got there, Esposito was examining their weapons.

"Bolt action carbines. A three round magazine and one up the spout. One of them's got a saber, so maybe he was the boss?"

Castle cursed. "We're getting hit with people with more modern weapons. One of these days we'll find someone with weapons as good as ours."

"But not today." Espo said as he began prying the bullet from the cartridge case.

"What are you doing?"

"This is modern smokeless powder, not like that black powder the flying things used. I've been keeping my used water bottles and I'll fill 'em up with this. We may need an explosive someday."

"Good idea. And disable the carbines when you're done. We don't want any of their friends, or anyone else finding them."

Doc Ryan came over to them.

"We've checked the two wounded. Johnson got hit in the armpit where his vest doesn't cover him. It shot a chunk out of him, but he'll be okay. But Preece has a problem. He got run over by one of their damned animals and his leg is busted, I'm pretty sure it's his tibia. I set it and I made a splint, but he can't walk for a few days and even then, he'll need to take it easy."

"Okay. What do you suggest?"

"We haul him back to the bunker and fort up there for a couple of days. I think we can make some kind of crutches out of the door frame. Or maybe a stretcher."

"I hope they keep sending food if we don't keep moving. They always put the food and ammo and shit in front of us and more or less west, like they want us to keep moving."

"Only one way to find out, Sarge."

They carried Preece back to the bunker in a woobie, carried by six people. Once set up, Castle sent out Alpha fire team to take a quick look around.

"Don't go out of radio range, a mile or so. We should have no problems with reception on this flat plain and I'm going to stand on top of the bunker. If you see anything, anything at all, a cute little kitten, a gorgeous woman, or a bar, call it in and head straight back here. Got that?"

However, the patrol found nothing.

The next day, they found a cache of ammo, food and other goods a few yards outside the bunker. Castle had everyone stand to and sent a team out to get their supplies.

Espo came back in with the first of the supplies.

"We have ammo, food, drink, and medicine. And we have a present for someone named Beckett." Eugenio Moranta came in with a military grade protective vest. It had Beckett written on it.

"Any sign of the NATO alliance out there?" Castle asked.

Esposito shook his head.

"Not even one lousy tank."

Kate got busy switching to her new protective vest.

"Sharon, do you want my old vest? It's not as good as the military issue with plates, but it's better than nothing."

Sharon shook her head. "Kate, if I had a smokin' hot model's body like yours and I could fit into that vest, I'd have never been out hunting deer. I'd have been in a bar hunting cowboys."

Kate looked at Norwood.

"Do you want it, Norwood?"

She stepped forward shyly.

"Thank you." She took the vest and put it on.

"You're a little shorter than me, so more of your torso will be covered." Then Kate thought of something. "I have a backup piece, a 9mm Glock 26. Do you want it?"

Norwood shook her head, then spoke in a whisper. "I don't know how to shoot. I've never even touched a gun before."

"I can teach you." Milton said.

Norwood, looked at Milton, then at Kate, then held out her hand.

"Thank you, Detective Beckett."

Kate handed over her backup.

"Call me Kate, please."

"I'm Janice. Thanks again."

Later that afternoon, Kate found Castle on the roof of the bunker, scanning the surroundings with the binoculars.

"See anything?" She asked.

"Something way over there. Mostly it's a cloud of dust on the horizon. I can see little dots moving, but that's it. It might be a herd of something, more of our mounted friends, or anything. I just don't know."

He noticed that Milton had come out of the bunker.

"Hey, Milton. Come up here for a moment."

Milton climbed up.

"What do you want, Sarge?"

"You seem to have managed to make Norwood a part of this unit, and not just with us. How'd you manage it?"

Milton laughed.

"Janice hasn't been trained for any of this shit. I mean, not like any of us have been trained for being on some planet where everything I trying to kill you. But once she stopped freaking out at every little thing, she actually started to think. We talked and I found out she went to Harvard and to Harvard Law, so we had something in common."

"Whoa!" Castle said quickly. "You went to Harvard Law and ended up a sniper?"


	6. Chapter 6

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and quite AU.

Milton laughed. "Allow me to properly introduce myself, William Denton Milton III. Both of my parents went to Harvard and Harvard Law, then founded a pretty respectable law firm in Boston. Since I was a double legacy, and the one of the best rugby players in New England, I got into Harvard. But, at the end of my first semester, Harvard told me that I needed to take some time to find myself. I think they meant I shouldn't find myself passed out in the lady's room of a bar in Cambridge with no pants on. I did mention to you that I have a talent for mischief."

"My parents then got me into Brown. What happened there was not my fault."

"I can't wait to hear this." Castle said.

"I was at a party where a young lady did a particularly good striptease. I didn't know her, I gave her nothing to ingest, I was not the only one to take a video of the striptease and I was not the only one to put the video on line. But, somehow, it was all my fault. I exited Brown."

"Next was Boston College. However, I thought their rugby coach was a pervert and I had come out and said so. He refused to have me on the team. So, my father sat me down for "the talk". He told me I was in danger of becoming nothing but a spoiled rich man's son and he wouldn't stand for that. He cut me off financially. Cut off my credit cards, stopped paying my rent, everything. I had a few thousand dollars saved away. I found out one thing about the rich, once you're not one of them, well, you're not one of them."

"As part of the talk, my father regaled me with stories of his days in the Marines during Gulf War One. He was quite proud of that. Perhaps that's how I ended up in the Army. But, here I am. At least I'm not a typical rich man's son."

"I'm sure he'd be proud of you." Castle said.

"I'm sure he'd think I was crazy." Milton replied. He winked at Castle. "And he'd probably be right."

The next day they had more visitors.

"Sarge," the lookout yelled from atop the bunker. "We got people coming. Looks like riders, maybe the same bunch that hit us."

"How many?" Castle yelled back.

"A whole shitload."

"Can you be more fucking specific?" Castle yelled back as he ran to the top of the bunker.

"A hundred, maybe more."

Castle focused his binoculars on the oncoming mass.

"Jesus! We get everything here."

"What is it, Sarge?"

"We've got centaurs coming."

"Centaurs? What are they?"

"Horses with the torso, arms and head of a human."

They both went back inside the bunker to prepare for possible trouble. The centaurs gave the bunker a wide berth, however. A half a dozen of them seemed to have been detailed to keep an eye on the bunker as the others passed.

"They're headed for the river, I think." Castle said, still watching through the binoculars. "They seem to be armed with crossbows. I can see both male and females. And some children. Looks like they have saddlebags and…Yeah, a see a couple of carts being pulled."

He kept watching as they approached the river.

"What the hell are they going to do? The damned river is still full of those super eels and more damned killer fish."

As he watched, the centaurs began throwing something in the river. Then as others kept throwing what ever it was upstream, the rest of the centaurs began drinking and washing in the river.

"Damn! That could be useful. Maybe they'll trade some of that with us. We might have to cross the river one day."

"Should we go out?" Beckett asked.

"I'll go out." Norwood said. "This is one of those times you need a lawyer."

Castle shook his head.

"Most people and things on this planet seem to want to kill everyone else. You're not good enough with your pistol to get yourself out of trouble if things go wrong. I'm going."

"Bill has been showing me how to shoot his rifle." Janice protested.

"Still not good enough. Everybody, keep a close eye on me and listen to my radio, and don't start anything unless I tell you to, or I go down. Got it?"

As he headed for the bunker door, Beckett stopped him.

"It'll be safer if we both go."

"No. We'll have twice as many to lose."

She started to argue, then gave him a quick kiss.

"Come on back to me, you hear?"

Castle walked out of the bunker, but wondered why he did. Suddenly, leaving Kate behind seemed like a bad idea.

As soon as he started walking to the centaurs, three of them peeled off and headed for him. He smiled and held out his arms, away from his weapons. He saw that all three centaurs had cocked their crossbows and held them at the ready.

"Hi. My name is Rick and I was wondering about whatever it is you use to keep the river monsters away. We could use some of that. We can trade. We have lots of cool stuff."

The middle centaur glared at him and pointed back to the bunker.

Castle kept smiling.

"That's right. We're back there. So, how about a trade? I can bring some of our gear out here for you to take a look at."

The centaur moved forward and pushed Castle back. He spoke into his radio. "Everything's okay. They're either playing hardball with the trade, or they're not interested."

The centaur pushed him back again, and one of the others swung his crossbow around to cover Castle.

"Okay. I get it. You're not interested. But if you change your minds, we're right over there. And we have some good stuff."

He walked away, wondering if he was going to get shot in the back. He wasn't.

"We heard." Kate said as he came back in the bunker. "No deal."

"It looked like they understood you, but never said anything." Janice said. "I wonder why?"

Castle had no idea.

"Maybe they're mutes. Maybe they communicate telepathically. Maybe they have some sort of cultural bias against talking to people with just two legs. I don't know."

They watched as the centaurs washed in the river, then after several hours, they crossed the river and eventually disappeared.

The next day they got another surprise.

"We got food, ammo and some other stuff. "Espo said. "Come take a look."

"A backpack radio?" Castle said. "Let me see it."

Castle examined it.

"Not one I'm familiar with, although it appears to be a military radio and everything is in English. It's got high frequency, very high frequency and ultra high frequency settings. And I think it has frequency hopping abilities. It should be able to net with our personal radios. We should be able to pick them up from a little farther away."

"We also got a nice black, metallic blanket." Espo said, holding it out.

"I think that's a solar panel." Janice said. "Look. It's got something like a power cable on it. And I think the radio has a similar female port."

Castle checked it.

"Yeah. I think we can recharge the radio's batteries if that's what this is. And I can use it to recharge my laptop."

"You have a laptop?" Norwood asked. "What for?"

"It's very useful. It has all kinds of maps of a planet other than this. We can control a drone with it, if we had a drone. It's GPS enabled, if there were any GPS satellites up there. And we can link with other laptops, if there were any. And we can access the internet. But, I don't think our bunker has free wi-fi."

"I have laptop, too." Janice said. "Can I charge mine?"

"Sure, why not. Do you have anything useful?"

"Nothing about this planet."

"Surprise, surprise." Castle picked up the radio. "I'm going to take it outside and see if it works."

"Aren't you afraid someone might pick up your transmission and find us?" Van Ott said.

"That's why I'm just going to listen."

Castle took the radio to the top of the bunker and began going through the channels. He sat there for several hours.

After a while, Beckett came up to see him, followed by Glesko.

"Find anything?" She asked.

"A lot of static and some clicks. The clicks might be code, or just background noise for this planet. Nothing recognizable as communications."

"We should try tonight. Atmospherics are better." Glesko said.

"You volunteering?"

"I'll volunteer one of my team." Glesko said as he left.

"You'll need someone to carry the radio." Kate said.

"Janice would be perfect."

She glared at him.

"You're right. Sharon is the obvious choice."

The glare intensified.

"You can't expect Anna to carry this in addition to all her other gear."

"Castle, shut up and either help get the radio in my backpack or I'll shove it down your throat."

He laughed, but helped put it in her backpack. He leaned forward and kissed her.

"I wish we could do more than that."

"We could sneak out one night." She said hopefully.

"The sentries keep picking up things with their night vision goggles. We're not sure what they are, but I'm betting they're not cuddly little kittens. And when you're making love, you're not in the best position to defend yourself."

"We could take Bill and Janice with us, and Doc and Anna."

"And we also don't want to upset anyone without a girlfriend."

"Bummer." Kate said.

They heard nothing on the radio for several days, then they decided to keep moving as Preece's leg seemed to be better. Ryan had made some crude crutches from the door frame of the bunker, which helped.

By the time the reached what they called the Great Forest, Preece's leg was back to normal.

"Those trees are enormous." Castle said, looking up.

"Fucking huge." Hayes said.

"I used my laser range finder, but I can't see the actual tree tops due to the foliage. But the foliage starts at about a hundred and ten meters." Esposito said. "And there's nothing but these trees growing here."

"Old growth forest." Van Ott said.

"They'd have to be old to be that tall." Castle said.

"Oh, you city slicker, you. Old growth forests are where the biggest trees block out the sunlight for anything below them. Since plants need sunlight for photosynthesis, the smaller, lower trees and plants die off, leaving just the big ones. The ground is covered with the remains of those trees and needles, leaves or seed pods from the big trees. That rots and leaves and makes kind of a giant compost pit."

"Okay, there's plenty of room between the trees, and we still have the river over there. Everybody keep an eye out. Unlike out on the prairie, someone or something could sneak up on us easily."

They marched through the forest and settled down with their backs up against an enormous tree. The next morning, they got another surprise.

"We've got breakfast." Van Ott said. "And, we have some fresh milk, real eggs and bread, in addition to the usual food. We also have fresh batteries and someone named Beckett got another present." He held out a rifle with the name Kate Beckett painted in white on the stock. "And you have web gear to go with your brand new M 51, as well as seven clips of ammo, a Camelback ® hydration system, first aid kit, bayonet, an OCP shirt and your very own woobie."

"OCP?" Kate asked.

"Operational Camouflage Pattern, just like we wear."

As Kate set about checking her new rifle and putting on her web gear, Castle thought.

"We've been at this for a long time now. I think we need another day off. We've been marching since we left the bunker. We'll use what we just got to make a real good breakfast and just relax for the day."


	7. Chapter 7

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"Rick," Kate said, "I now have a spare weapon, my shotgun. Do you think Janice knows enough about weapons to start carrying it?"

"That's up to Janice, and to Bill, I guess."

Janice and Bill exchanged glances, then she held out her hands.

"Thank you. And thank you all for putting up with me when I was such an asshole."

People smiled, but said nothing.

"Here you go, Janice. Remember that the shotgun has a range of only about twenty or thirty meters. You're going to have to let your target get awfully close with this."

"Not as close as I'd have to with no weapon. Thanks again, Kate."

"If you gentlemen will excuse me, I'm going to change into my new shirt. Janice, do you want the old one? You're the only one here without some kind of camo."

The two women disappeared behind the tree and came back a few minutes later.

"I have a suggestion." Janice said. "We should use some of our water to wash our socks and anything else. We're all very stinky."

"We're gentlemen. We hadn't noticed. "Ryan said,

"The rest of us have, and we are all stinky."

After a day of rest, they set out once more. They hadn't gone more than a mile when the point man signaled for a stop. Castle moved forward to see what it was.

"Take a look. The forest floor has been disturbed. Someone or something has been this way."

They gathered around trying to tell what had made the tracks.

"Sharon, you're the hunter. Any ideas?"

She shook her head.

"I can tell deer tracks from Jeep tracks, but that's about it."

Castle thought.

"Okay, we'll follow the tracks. Maybe they'll lead us somewhere."

"Maybe a town full of big snakes or something." Esposito said.

But they followed the tracks.

Next day the point man stopped them again.

"Hear that, Sarge?" Preece said.

"Sounds like humming. Lots of humming."

Castle went back and told his people what he'd heard. They moved forward very slowly.

"There." Preece whispered to Castle who was right behind him.

"Spiders? Really big spiders. They must be three feet across." Castle took a closer look. "They're feeding on something. Looks humanoid."

They got closer to it and it was humanoid. Short, squat, grey, hairless, but humanoid.

"Hard to tell since we can't get any closer due to the damned giant spiders, but I think he was shot. And that's a shotgun by him. Double barrel, break top, I think."

They moved on and late that afternoon, they stopped again.

"More of them." Preece whispered to Castle. "Same grey people as we saw last time. I make it eight of them, dead, and no spiders this time."

Castle lead his troops to examine them.

"Definitely the same ones as before. Looks like they were ambushed while they were cooking dinner."

Ryan looked at the dinner more closely.

"That looks an awful lot like a human leg they were eating."

"There's another one over here." Glesko said, motioning them over.

The other dead one was female and humanoid, quite humanoid, in fact.

"Except for the elf ears she could be human. Asian human, maybe."

She was tall and slender with black hair that fell to her waist. She was dressed in a loose green and red patterned dress, with what looked like buckshot holes in it. She had a black sash around her waist.

Espo spoke.

"The greys all have shotguns, kind of crudely made. There are also four cap and ball revolvers, much better made. I'm betting the women were carrying them. That one still has a powder flask around her waist, I'm sure."

Castle shook his head.

"Can't we find one damn thing on this planet that isn't trying to kill us?"

No one had an answer for that.

"I found something else." Espo said, holding out some expended brass shell casings. "These were apparently fired by the people who killed the cannibals. From the looks of the brass, the slugs must be about the same diameter as our 7.62mm rounds, but the cartridge is a bit longer. Their ammo won't fire through our weapons and vice versa."

"What are the other casings?"

"Either pistol or submachine gun rounds. Probably the latter. I'd say they're 10mm."

"Anything else?"

Espo shook his head.

"Okay, everyone keep your heads on a swivel. And don't forget to look up. There could snipers in the trees. Let's move out."

Just after dawn the next day, the point man again motioned for the troops to stop. Castle went forward as usual.

"Looks like we found someone, Sarge." Johnson pointed straight ahead. There was a person with their back up against a tree, but sitting on a stretcher. His eyes appeared closed and they could see a bandage around his left leg where his trousers had been cut away.

"Dead or maybe unconscious?" Johnson said.

"Or asleep or playing possum." Castle thought for a second. "Stay here and keep him under observation. I'm going to send two people around behind him and disarm him. I'll bring up the rest in case it's a trap. Okay?"

The plan worked perfectly. The soldier was disarmed without awakening. Castle looked him over. He wore canvas boots with thick rubber soles, olive green pants with a shirt that looked like the tiger stripe camo he'd seen in old movies about the Vietnam war. His load bearing equipment was woven cotton, or something like cotton, and canvas. On his head was a billed cap in the same camo as the shirt.

As Ryan examined him, Espo checked the rifle.

"Castle, I'm sure this rifle is the same kind that shot up our cannibals. It's a semi-automatic rifle with a ten-round magazine, loaded by two five round stripper clips. It's well made and in good condition. He also has a bayonet." Espo tapped the bayonet that was tucked into his webbing.

Castle knelt by Ryan.

"How is he?"

"She." Ryan replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Castle, I'm a highly trained combat medic. I'd recognize a pair of boobs when I run across them. Her canteen is empty, so I'm going to try to get her to drink. Otherwise, I'll set up a saline drip."

He rubbed a wet cloth against the alien woman's lips. Her eyes opened, showing yellow irises. She looked around woozily, then began drinking from the water bottle Ryan held to her lips. She downed the whole bottle. Then reached out and grabbed Castle's balls.

"You are a man?" She asked.

"Yeah, and you could have just asked." He said, pushing her hand away.

"Where are your women? Who's protecting you?"

"We have four women with us, but we don't really need protection."

"Don't be frightened. My sisters will be back soon and will protect you,"

"You're the first person on this planet who's thought that way."

"Castle, she has a wound in her leg and it's turned gangrenous. I'm going to give her a pain killer that'll knock her out and then some antibiotics. Assuming she isn't allergic, she should be okay." Ryan gave her a shot.

"No." The woman said "I must stay awake to protect you." But the sedative was already working. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

"If and when her sisters come back, they may or not be in a protective mood. Get her down on the stretcher and let's find a place where we can set up a good defensive position."

The woman woke up in the late afternoon. She looked and apparently felt much better. She looked around her.

"You are men?"

"Fourteen of us and four women." Castle replied.

"Where are you from?"

"Earth?"

The woman frowned.

"I have never heard of a nation called Earth. It must be very far indeed from the Lands of the Morea."

"Earth is the planet we come from. All but one of us is from a country called the United States of America. The one other is from a country that is allied to us, called Ukraine. Are you from this planet?"

The woman shook her head,

"We do not know this planet, but many of our people have disappeared. I assume they were brought here." She looked around her. "You have only four women, but all of your men are armed? Why?"

"We're soldiers. We fight."

"Are there four women for every fourteen men on your world?"

"No, men and women are about even."

The woman's eyes widened in shock.

"You have as many men as women? How many people do you have?"

"The US has about three hundred and fifty million people and the whole planet has about eight billion people."

"And half are men?"

"Is that odd in your country?"

"There are about sixteen women for every man. Men are considered to be too precious a resource to do anything but procreate."

"Sounds like fun." Bill said.

"Like hell." Janice replied, putting her arm around him.

"What's your name?" Castle asked.

"Marine First Class Argello of the Great Clan of Jully."

"I'm Staff Sergeant Rick Castle, US Army. I'm in charge of this unit."

"Tell me about your world."

Castle, with the help of the others, filled her in on Earth. Argello was mostly interested in Earth's military, but kept coming back to the fact that men and women existed in approximately even numbers on Earth. She was also fascinated with the weapons and equipment they carried.

"Okay, we could talk for days about our planet. Tell us about yours."

The planet, called Karaid, seemed to be much like Earth, however, nearly ninety percent of the surface area of the planet was water. The land area was small islands, with no real continental land masses.

Her people had been moved to Karaid some three thousand years ago, but the mechanics of the move were fuzzy. Their ancestors had just arrived there. Her country, Morea, had been established on three islands. After some discussion they decided the islands were about the size of two New Zealands plus an Ireland. More or less.

In addition to being large, Morea had very fertile land and abundant iron and coal. Eventually, Morea began to expand to much smaller nearby islands until the country covered about ten percent of the planet's area. Mostly water, of course. From what Argello said, the expansion was mostly peaceful, but they did have wars. The iron and coal allowed them to begin an industrial revolution.

The military was the navy. The Marines provided the ground forces, amounting to a small division, but rarely deployed more than a reinforced battalion. The naval air force provided the air power.

Technologically, they seemed to be at about the level of World War Two, with no nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, a minimal understanding of radar and some use of sonar. The pride of the fleet was a small aircraft carrier carrying about thirty-five aircraft. The remainder of the fleet were what would have been conventional WWII cruisers, destroyers and submarines, plus auxiliaries.

"Why did your sisters abandon you?" Ryan asked.

"They did not abandon me." Argello said." They left me with a weapon and ammunition. They have no medicine such as you have to cure me. However, there are growths on our world that can cure some diseases. They were looking for these."

"Sort of like penicillin, I guess." Castle said.

Ryan held up his hand. "We should have dinner and then my patient needs to rest. We can talk about each other's planets forever and it won't do us any damned good on this planet."

Once it was dark, Castle set out sentries and told them to be very careful. Argello's people would come looking for her, but there were probably other, dangerous, people and things out there as well.

Castle was awakened at about 4 AM.

"Sarge," Van Ott whispered in his ear. "We have a couple of heat signatures in the area. I'm betting it's Argello's people looking for her. So far, none of them have come close to us."

Castle thought for a second.

"If they come close, wake me up. Otherwise, let everyone get a good night's sleep."


	8. Chapter 8

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

About an hour after sunrise, the first of Argello's people came near the camp. Castle emerged from behind a large boulder with his hands up, away from his weapon.

"Hi. We found Marine Argello of the Great Clan of Jully. We've treated her injury and believe she'll get better. Would you like to see her?"

The woman had brought her weapon to bear on Castle, but spoke.

"I'll inform my squad leader." She backed away and was gone.

"I'll be right here." He called after her.

It took nearly an hour before anyone showed up. They spotted heat signatures moving around them, then settling down.

"What's taking them so long?" Ryan asked no one in particular.

Castle answered. "First they had to talk it over. Friendly people on this planet must be a rarity. So, they decided that they'll take a chance, but be in a good position to fight if things turn to shit. It's pretty much what I'd do."

"Someone coming, Sarge."

Castle stepped back in front of the boulder before the other arrived.

"I'm Marine Corporal Jhana of the Great Clan of Jully. Who are you?"

"Staff Sergeant Rick Castle, US Army. We found Marine Argello and treated her. Would you like to see her?"

The woman took a deep breath and walked forward. Then, she stopped in front of Castle. Her hand shot towards his crotch, but he caught it.

"Yes, I'm a man, but my girlfriend doesn't appreciate other women grabbing me."

Unknown to Rick, Kate smiled at being referred to as his girlfriend.

"Where are your women? How many of them are there? Do you need help?"

Castle sighed at having to go over this again.

"We number fourteen men and four women. However, on our planet the numbers of men and women are about equal. We're all well armed, well equipped and well trained. Most of us are soldiers."

"Surely, you must be joking."

Castle thought about it but didn't give the obvious reply.

"Come and see for yourself."'

The woman followed Castle. She examined Argello and spoke with her at great length about the people from Earth.

'May I bring my people here? They aren't going to believe there are this many men here and only four women."

"Sure. But not all of the men are available. I'm not, Sergeant Ryan isn't, I believe and neither is Sergeant Milton."

"On your world a woman can have a man all to herself?"

"Pretty much."

The woman shook her head and called in the rest of her squad.

While most of the men were interested in the women, Espo was interested in their weapons. Not to the exclusion of the women, of course.

"Sergeant Castle?" He said as Argello regaled her squad with what she had learned of Earth. "There are eleven of them. They have eight rifles like Argello's, two submachine guns, about 10mm and the Corporal carries a 10mm automatic pistol. They also have one light machine gun. That's it over by the boulder. It fires the same cartridge as the rifles and uses a thirty round magazine that loads from the top."

"The top? How do they use the sights?"

"They're offset. I've seen one like it before in a museum."

Castle raised an eyebrow.

"You've been to a museum?"

"I was at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Hawaii is very expensive and a poor young troop runs out of money really fast. I went to this museum about World War Two in the Pacific. The Japanese had a machine gun like theirs. Sort of. And they get food, water, ammo and whatever else they need, just like we do."

The Moreans were more interested in the men, but showed some interest in their weapons and equipment.

Just before dark, they had dinner. The two groups exchanged food and each admitted military food was, at best, tolerable. The Moreans did like that the American rations were smaller and more portable than theirs.

That night, Castle was woken by Beckett.

"What is it? Someone coming?"

"In a manner of speaking." Beckett replied. "Listen."

Castle could hear moaning and some giggling.

"How many of them are at it?" he said, sitting up.

"One couple too few." Beckett pushed him back down. "I'm getting undressed. If you know what's good for you, you will, too."

He knew what was good for him. He kissed her to keep her quiet and began stroking her breasts, then move down her stomach and slid one finger into her slit.

"You're soaking wet." He whispered.

"Then do something about it." She whispered back.

He rolled on top of her and entered her. As she began to moan, he returned to kissing her. Neither one lasted very long after all the time they had been celibate.

"That was fantastic." She whispered. "Worth the wait, but we should have done that before this."

"I think we'll all be doing this a lot more."

"Just remember you have a girlfriend." She leaned in and kissed him. "A very jealous girlfriend."

"We'll have to set up some kind of rotation."

"God, that is so fucking military."

"Common sense." Castle whispered. "I can see from here that our sentries are distracted, to say the least. I can see that Espo, Milton, Ryan and van Ott have their hands on their weapons, among other things. As for the rest, we could get attacked by a herd of heavily armed woolly mammoths crashing through the trees and they'd never notice."

Kate thought for a second.

"You know, if you sat with your back against that tree and I sat on your lap, we could look in both directions."

"Did you have anything else in mind besides guard duty?"

"Of course."

They made it through the night without being attacked. After breakfast, Corporal Jhana came to talk to Castle. Kate made sure she sat right next to him.

"Sergeant, your unit is larger than ours and is better equipped. We have nothing like your individual radios, body armor, night vision gear and so much else. I think it would be best if we joined forces."

"I think so as well. But we can't have a divided command. I think I should be in command."

Jhana laughed.

"Do you have any idea what my troops would do to if I tried to take them away from so many men? I'd be all by myself." She stopped and thought for a moment. "Your men are different from ours. As long as we're military, we're not allowed to breed. We have a device implanted that prevents conception. Not that we'd have much chance of getting a man, although there are some available for a price."

"How do they handle…those things back home?" Kate asked.

"When the doctors advise that a woman is fertile, she's taken to the House of the Men and when she's at her most fertile, she's taken to a man and they mate." Jhana blushed. "It's nothing like last night. It's all very quick. The idea is to get the woman pregnant to continue our race. It's not about enjoyment. You men are very different."

"How so?" Castle was curious.

"To begin with, you're different physically. You're very muscular, with rough hands. It's like making love with another female soldier, but one with a cock. Our men do nothing but procreate. They become rather…flabby. Plus, Earth men are interested in their partners enjoyment. I've only had orgasms with other women and I've never heard of a woman having an orgasm with a man. The men don't even try, they just lay there and let us do all the work."

"Speaking about last night." Castle said. "Everyone was making love last night, even the sentries. We can't have that again. We could all get killed. We'll have to set up some kind of rotation."

"That almost sounds like the House of Men."

Kate leaned against Rick.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find it's much different. Just remember some men are off limits."

Rick changed the subject before Kate got too descriptive.

"Ryan, our medic, wants to keep Argello here for another day at least. When we do move out, we'll probably have to carry her in the stretcher for a few days. We'll just have to see."

"All right. There's one other thing. I do have a small radio in my backpack. Since we have no other radios, we've had no use for it. Can you net with your radios?"

Castle stood.

"There's just one way to find out."

Half of the squad gathered around the radios, making suggestions. They found that their individual radios could not net with the Morean radio, but that it could communicate with the backpack radio.

"Okay, if we have to split up, we can talk to you, or we can give you one of our personal radios. We'll have to see what kind of range your radio has by trial and error." Castle smiled. "And now I have some good news and some bad news. The good news in that the Moreans will be joining us. I'll have to talk further with Corporal Jhana to see just how we'll organize things, but we're now one team under my command."

It seemed that everyone was happy with that.

"The bad news is that everyone was screwing last night. That has to stop."

That brought a chorus of complaints.

"No! I don't mean no one's going to have sex in the future, but it does mean that all night sex with everyone has to stop. If we'd been hit last night, we would have all been killed. Now there are three committed couples in this group. Beckett and me, Ryan and Konev and Milton and Norwood. Those men are off limits. That leaves eleven men for eleven women, or twelve if we add Hayes."

He thought of something.

"And Argello is out of this for the time being. She has to recover. Got that?" He turned to Hayes. "You want in on this, Sharon?"

She smiled.

"I've lost a few pounds on this trip, so why not. I'm as fucking gorgeous as anyone here with the lights out, boys."

Castle nodded.

"I'm assuming there are no more committed couples now?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"So, my idea is each man puts his name in a hat and a woman will draw out a name. When everyone's had a turn, we draw names again. If and when there are more couples, we'll reconsider. And we won't have any problems, understood? If you don't like who you're paired with, too bad. Wait until the next drawing. And if you're hot for someone and they're not hot for you, too bad as well."

"How often do we get to screw?" Espo asked.

"Two couples a night." Castle said.

That brought protests.

"Shut the fuck up! "Castle screamed. "You've seen what this planet is like. The goddam plants are lethal. No one's going to get us killed because they're thinking with their dick or with their pussy. Anyone who violates this loses a turn. No exceptions."

Van Ott stood up and looked over the large boulder in front of the camp.

"I think we have company, Sarge. Pretty big from the sound of it."

Pretty big was an understatement. A herd of something that looked like a cross between a hairy rhinoceros and an octopus shambled by. There were seven adults and perhaps two dozen children in the band. Oddly enough, a dozen or so tiger like beings trotted along side the huge beasts. Occasionally one would look at where the humans were, but they just looked.

Eventually, they were gone.

"What the hell were those?" Someone asked in a whisper.

"Just more of what I've been telling you about." Castle said.

"They came close enough to smell us, maybe even see us." Milton said. "Why didn't they attack? Everything else does."

"Maybe we don't smell or look like anything dangerous, or good to eat. Maybe they were late for an appointment with their bookie. Who the fuck knows?" Hayes said quietly.


	9. Chapter 9

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

Castle and Jhana sat down to discuss the organization of the new unit. The Moreans didn't divide their squads up into permanent fire teams. They divided the squad on an ad hoc basis, if and when needed. Finally, the two leaders divided Jhana's squad into to two fire teams, designated Charlie and Delta. Charlie had the light machine gun and Delta had one of the submachine guns to try to balance the firepower. They had briefly considered making the four squads half American and half Morean, but differences in weapons and tactics made that option too difficult to try.

After a day, they set off, carrying the injured Argello on a stretcher. It took a number of days, but eventually she could walk on her own. In fact, Argello was on point, armed with a submachine gun when she signaled for a halt. Castle and Jhana ran to the front of the column to see what was happening.

"Hear that?" Argelllo said softly.

"Gunfire?" Jhana said.

Then the heard something else.

"That was a fully automatic weapon. We haven't had to fight anyone that well-armed." Castle said.

"Can we go around them?" Jhana asked.

"I'm going to send my sniper team on a scout." Castle decided. "They're trained not to be seen."

Espo and Milton were briefed and sent off.

Castle set his people up for all round defense and waited and worried for a half an hour. Finally, the radio crackled to life.

"Sniper One to Castle. Over."

"Castle to Sniper One. What's up?"

"We're on a hill overlooking the firefight. Below us are about a hundred of the grey cannibal bastards. I can't see who they're fighting against. Whoever they are, are at the base of little peninsula jutting out into a lake. They look like they're well dug in. I can't tell you anything about them except they seem to be well armed. Machine guns. At least two and other automatic weapons. Over."

"Sniper One, can we get around them? Over."

"I don't think so. The forest ends here for several miles. We'd be in the open. Even if they're busy with the others, they'd damn near sure see us. Over."

"Where are the cannibals from you?' Over."

"The greys are in a gully about two hundred yards from us and another two hundred from the peninsula. The gully's higher on the far side than on this side. If you want….Oh Shit!"

"Sniper One! What happened? Over?"

"We got more cannibals coming. Lots more. I'd say about a hundred and fifty more. And they have some kind of red furred animals with them. Looks like they have weapons on them. Lemme look. Over."

"Sniper One? Talk to me. What's going on?"

"They're handing out weapons and ammo unloaded from the red things. Hard to tell, but they look like rifles of some sort, not the shotguns we saw earlier. Over."

Castle thought for a minute, then turned to Jhana.

"That many cannibals that well-armed and that close to us is bad. I think if we hit them as they get out of the gully and attack the others, we can chop them up."

Jhana nodded.

"Sounds good."

He got back on the radio.

"Sniper One. Does it look like they're planning to attack the others?"

"They already tried at least once. There are a bunch of dead greys in front of the gully. We've got time, though. It looks like they're cooking up some of their own dead for lunch. Over."

"Sniper One. How do we get to you? Over."

"Go forward about two hundred yards and you'll see the forest start to thin out. Start turning to your left and you'll hit a hill. We're on top of it. Over."

"Sniper One. Maintain your position. We're coming to you. Out."

Castle briefed his people, explaining what he meant to do.

Jhana added some additional information.

"The greys don't have an internal skeleton like we do, but an exoskeleton. If you punch a bullet through the exoskeleton, which is pretty easy, the hydrostatic shock of the bullets impact on their internal organs will push them into each other. If it doesn't kill them outright, they'll die quickly enough."

Castle stopped his troops about ten yards from the top of the hill.

"Everyone stays here. We do not want those bastards down there to see us. Got that?"

Everyone nodded. Then Castle began crawling to the top of the hill where Esposito and Milton were watching the cannibals.

Castle nodded to himself when he saw the two men. Their ghillie suits, standard uniforms with strips of old camouflage clothing and burlap attached to them and having added local foliage attached, made them difficult to see up close and nearly impossible to spot from any distance. Even their rifles had been camouflaged with burlap wrapped around the barrels and scopes.

"Think I can risk a quick look with the binocs?" Castle asked.

Espo nodded.

"I think they're nerving themselves up for another attack. All of their concentration is on the people they're about to attack."

He edged up to the crest and looked down. He had already heard some kind of chanting from the cannibals, but could see they were slapping their rifle butts in unison. Several of the cannibals were walking around, shouting.

"Keep an eye on the ones giving speeches. They're probably officers. I don't see any radiomen, or anyone with heavy weapons."

"I think they're about to go." Milton said.

Sure enough, they were all standing up in the gully.

Castle decided Milton was right and called for his troops to move up, but not to shoot. They had hardly gotten in place before the cannibals began their attack. As soon as the last cannibal left the gully, Castle screamed for them to fire. At the same time the cannibals' unknown other enemy opened fire.

The cannibals could have done a number of things. They could have continued their attack in hopes of defeating their initial foe and taking over their entrenchments. They could have turned about and attacked the new force attacking them from their rear. Or, they could have retreated so as not to be caught between two fires and then made their plans with time to consider their options. Luckily for Castle, various groups tried to do all three. Some continued straight ahead, some turned about to face their new enemy and some moved away from their two enemies. As each group saw other groups doing something else, they all tried to conform to those actions. The result was confusion and eventually the complete destruction of the cannibals.

"Cease fire." Castle screamed, his cry being taken up by the fire team leaders. Suddenly, there was silence.

"Anybody wounded?" He yelled.

"Shit." Ryan yelled.

"What is it. Doc?"

"Tomassi's dead and Glesko is gonna lose his hand. I can't save it. Shit!"

Castle ran to check both men. Tomassi had been hit just below his right eye and the bullet had exited through the back of his head. Glesko's right hand was hanging by just a strip of flesh.

"What are you going to do, Doc?"

Ryan shook his head to clear it.

"I'll take the hand off and try to sew the wound up. I've sedated him. I'll need blood. He's an O positive so we should have someone who's compatible. I can do a person to person transfusion." Ryan looked around and yelled. "Anna? Who else is wounded? How badly?"

"A bullet hit a rock by a Morean Marine and splattered her face and eye with pieces of rock. She'll be okay. Johnson has a cut on his arm. It'll need stitching, but it can wait."

"Okay. Get over here. We need all the O positive donors we can find and then I have to do some surgery on Glesko.

Castle headed back up the hill. When he passed Tomassi's corpse, he found a Morean Marine sitting by him, holding his hand, tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry, Marine Jarama. I know words don't mean much at a time like this."

The woman nodded. "But it's all we have." She shook her head. "He was different from our men. He didn't think he should be treated like a god just because he had a cock. He was good to me, and not just when we made love."

Corporal Jhana came up behind Jarama.

"Are you going to be all right, Jarama?"

"I will be. In a bit."

Castle spoke. "Corporal, if it's okay with you, I'd like Jarama to take Tomassi's weapon, ammo, protective vest and helmet, his radio and his other equipment and personal stuff. I'd like Norwood to take Jarama's rifle and other gear. Her shotgun is pretty useless except at close range, although we may need it later."

Both women nodded.

"That'll be fine." Jhana said.

"We usually bury our dead. We'll have some sort of short service for him."

Again, both women nodded and Castle went back up the hill to Esposito and Milton.

"We got something, Sarge." Milton said. "Some dude just came out of the trench line over there. He made a big show of handing his rifle and pistol to another dude. Now he's just standing out there all by himself."

Castle looked down at the trenches.

"He probably wants to talk. Okay, Milton, I'll hand you my rifle and pistol in plain sight and go down to see what he wants."

Espo shook his head.

"I've seen some of those grey bastards moving. They aren't as dead as I'd like. Want me to finish them off?"

Castle shook his head.

"We don't want to be firing in their direction. It might spook them. I'll hand over my rifle and make a show of keeping my Sig and hope they realize why I'm doing it."

Castle and Milton stood and Castle made a show of handing over his rifle, but of holding his pistol in his hand. Then he began walking down the hill. When he got to the gully where the cannibals had started their charge, he found two alive. He shot both.

Holding his breath and saying a prayer, he walked out of the gully. No one shot at him. He found one cannibal crawling towards his rifle and shot him. Another was still breathing with his rifle laying on his chest. Castle shot him as well. When he was twenty feet from the other person, he bent down and placed his pistol on the ground.

The other was not human, although bipedal with two arms and basically humanoid features. His skin was a mottled grey, going from so dark as to be almost black to so light as to be nearly white. He had a muzzle that protruded about two inches, making him look somewhat like a dog, or a wolf. His pointed ears added to that effect. His eyes were a startlingly bright blue.

He was dressed in a camouflage uniform. Various dark spots over a green base. His pants were quite baggy and he had a matching jacket that went down to just above his knees. Over that he had web gear with what appeared to be ammo pouches and other less obvious pouches. On his head was a hemispherical helmet. It looked to Castle like he had a protective vest on under his jacket.

Castle spoke first.

"I'm Staff Sergeant Richard Castle. I command the unit on the hill. I have twenty-seven people up there, plus one badly wounded. I lost one dead in this fight."

The other nodded.

"I am Sergeant-Aspirant Kirta. I had nineteen people at the start of the fight yesterday. Now I have three dead and one badly wounded. I think…"

Before he could finish, there came the sound of a low dirge from behind him. A second person came out of the trenches.

"I may have lost my badly wounded companion. Or perhaps someone was in worse shape than I had thought."


	10. Chapter 10

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

Castle looked over the being coming toward them. He was dressed and equipped as the sergeant, but had his own ghillie suit pushed back over his shoulders. In one hand was a scope mounted automatic rifle with a suppressor on the muzzle. The forestock had been cut away and a grenade launcher had been mounted under the barrel of the rifle. Hanging from one shoulder was a submachine gun and he also had a pistol on each hip. Two potato masher type grenades were thrust in his belt and two round grenades were hanging from his web gear.

"Sergeant-Aspirant, Malak is no more."

The sergeant nodded.

"Thank you, Rifleman Than."

Than looked at Castle.

"Ah! A human from the US Army. Good, Sergeant- Aspirant. They are good fighters, have better equipment that we and have wonderful food."

"You've met humans before? Americans?"

Than smiled.

"Four seasons ago and then last season. But I know not where they are now."

"Four seasons ago? How long is that?"

"A local year. About three hundred and fifty days. When winter comes, the supplies arrive in the same place, encouraging people to take cover and stay put."

"How long have you been here?"

"Six seasons. But the sergeant-aspirant and his team have only been here for some sixty days."

Than told Castle that he had first run into some US Marines during his second season on the planet. He gave Castle all the information he could about them. Last season he had met a group of paratroopers. Castle hoped that if he ever got back to Earth, he could at least tell their next of kin what had happened to them. _As long as everyone doesn't think I'm crazy._ He thought.

"Sergeant-Aspirant, my people are pretty exposed upon that hill if anyone else attacks. It looks like you could use some help in holding your trenches."

The alien nodded.

"A good idea. I should like to see the weapons and equipment that Rifleman Than has told me about."

While Espo and others demonstrated their equipment and compared it to the aliens', Castle learned about their home. They were from a country called Salwes on a planet whose name translated as "Home." Salwes was a small country of some fifteen million people surrounded by larger and more populous enemies. Salwes had two things going for it. Their economy was far larger and far more advanced than their enemies allowing them to use technology to defeat their more numerous enemies. Secondly, there were no super powers on Home, just what on Earth would have been medium sized powers. They were more likely to trade with Salwes and allowed Salwes to purchase technology they hadn't developed themselves.

Their military was based on universal military service with very few exceptions. People with disabilities could serve in support units and allow more able-bodied soldiers to serve in combat arms. The military had conscripts who served for two years and then they became reservists who were called up for one month a year, or whenever there was a crisis. They did need some well-trained professional soldiers. Kirta's team was from one such unit, the assault battalion of an armored division that normally had only about a fifth of its people on active duty at any given time. They reminded Castle of the Israelis.

When Castle was done, Espo briefed him on the Salwesi.

"Kirta, who aspires to be an officer, has divided his unit into three-four man fire teams and a three man command unit. That's him, a radioman and Than, who serves as a sniper, scout and all purpose expert on all the things that can kill you on this planet. Each fire team has a semi-automatic rifle and three assault rifles, plus a heavier weapon. Team One has a fifty-one millimeter mortar. Its range is about a thousand yards and it fires high explosive, smoke and illumination rounds."

"Team Two is built around a medium machine gun, similar to our M 240. And Team Three is built around a heavy machine gun. Oddly, while none of their other ammo is compatible with ours or with the Morean's weapons, the heavy machine gun fires a round identical to the .338 Lapua Magnum I use in my sniper rifle. The weapons are well cared for and everyone seems to be well trained and highly motivated."

"So, having them with us would be a plus?" Castle asked.

"A real plus. And one other thing. They're hermaphrodites."

"Pardon?" Castle said.

"Right now, they're all male, but they can change to the female of the species. Apparently, the whole planet is that way. They'll stay male for as long as they're in the military."

"Anything else?"

"They all have flak vests, but they're made of something like the old ballistic nylon vests from fifty years ago. It'll stop pistol or submachine gun rounds, or shell fragments, but that's about it. They have two light enhancing scopes, again like the old starlight scopes of fifty years ago. The machine gun teams usually carry them. They have no medic, but they have individual first aid kits. Ryan says he doesn't know enough about them for him or Anna to be of any help to them when the shit hits the fan. Lastly, they have three radios. One with Kirta and the other two assigned as needed. We found they'll net with our radios."

"So, not as well equipped as we are, but better equipped than the Moreans?"

Esposito nodded. "And there's one more thing." He held out a thick, rectangular green bar of something. "This is why they love our MREs. Try one."

Castle took a bite. "It tastes like sawdust."

"I don't think it tastes as good as sawdust. Since we've been getting a few more rations than we can use, I handed out some MREs and a couple of First Strike rations. You'd have thought I'd given them Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings."

Castle managed to swallow the bite he'd taken. It tasted worse going down.

"Compared to this shit, that's what you gave them."

Now that both sides were briefed, Castle sat down with Kirta to try to come to an agreement to combine the two forces. It proved easier than he'd expected.

"Sergeant Castle, you have both a larger force than mine and your own US Army troops have more advanced equipment. I feel I should join you as your subordinate."

Castle nodded, suppressing a smile.

"I promise I'll do everything I can to get everyone home."

Kirta smiled ruefully.

"Rifleman Than has been here for years. I doubt any of us will see home again." Then he sniffed. "Changing the subject, all of you could use a wash and your clothing as well. Frankly, you stink."

"Have you seen what's in the water around here?"

Than spoke.

"This is a lake, not connected to the river, and, do you see the trees with the orange needles? They blow into the lake and poison the fish. I learned that from the centaurs."

"You've talked to them? They wouldn't say a word to us."

Than shook his head.

"I observed them. They collect the needles and throw them in the water to kill the dangerous fish. It works. I'll show you."

Than walked to the lake and took off his boots, then waded in.

"See? Perfectly safe."

The humans and the Moreans began to undress. Castle stopped them.

"Hold up. We're still in a combat zone, so only half goes in at one time. Since I imagine some of you will want to go skinny dipping with your girlfriends, pair up and count off by ones and twos." When they had down that, Castle told the twos to go swimming. They ran for the lake.

"We're ones." Kate said, frowning.

"Which means we can stay in longer. Now, we should go check the trenches. There are still folks that want to kill us out there."

After a half an hour, Castle called the others in and let the twos go. Instead of stripping quickly and jumping in the water, Kate did a slow, sensuous strip tease, then walked to the lake, swinging her hips. Castle followed.

"Why, Sergeant Castle, I do believe you're glad to see me." She said, reaching between his legs.

"You have no idea." He said.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Castle blushed.

"Could we move into deeper water?"

Kate rolled her eyes.

"Rick, every woman in the lake is getting laid except me. Look around you."

He did.

"Okay, but I'm just a bit self conscious. We should…"

Kate threw her arms around his neck and hoisted herself up, then impaled herself on his cock. She bounced up and down until both of them climaxed. After that, Castle was no longer self conscious.

Later that day they buried their dead in one of the trenches. After the burial, Kirta approached Castle.

"Sergeant, we should leave here. The grey cannibals are numerous on this planet, if neither well armed nor tactically very competent. But they are persistent. Than has had a great deal of experience with them."

"Okay. We'll get a good night's sleep and then head out tomorrow. Our supply drops have been moving us roughly west and a bit north. How about you?"

"The same."

"Then we'll head west and a bit north."

They set off the next morning and made good time until just before midday.

"Sergeant Castle." The point man called from the front of the column. "You need to see this."

This turned out to be a wall of a plant very similar to bamboo which blocked their way.

"Can we push through it?" Castle asked.

"It'll be hard." The point man pushed his way a few feet through the wall of bamboo, but it was obviously a great effort to shove through the plants. "Plus you can hear the plants knocking into each other. You'll be able to hear us coming."

"And we can hear anyone else coming." Castle retorted.

He called Beckett over.

"I want you to get upon my shoulders and take a look around."

He bent over and Kate climbed on him.

"I wanted to wrap my legs around your head, Castle, but this isn't what I had in mind."

"We can do it your way later. For now, I need to see how far this bamboo grove goes."

Kate stretched as much as she could, but wasn't high enough off the ground.

"I'll have to stand on your shoulders, Rick."

"Getting a little kinky, are you?" He said, but knelt so Kate could change position. When she was ready, he slowly stood up.

"I can't see any end to the bamboo to the right or left, but I can see a grove of trees about a mile dead ahead. After that it looks like there's more prairie."

Pushing through the bamboo was harder than they had thought. As soon as one person pushed the stalks away, they sprang back. Each person had to repeatedly push the bamboo away. In three hours, they had covered less than half a mile. That's when the point man called for Castle again.

"What is it?"

"Take a look. "The point man, Bravin, pointed to the bamboo. The rest of the column slowly came out of the grove. Castle knelt.

"These are from a track laying vehicle, I'm sure. Possibly a tank. The tracks are a bit less than a meter across and from one side to another is about four meters. Whatever it was is big and heavy. Could be a tank, or some other kind of armored vehicle."

"We could follow the tracks." Norwood said. "It'd be easier than pushing through this bamboo."

"Until we ran into the tank." Espo said. "We don't have anything that would do more than scratch the paint of a tank."

"We'll keep going the way we were. "Castle decided.

In another two hours they were out of the bamboo forest. What they found was a surprise.


	11. Chapter 11

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"I've seen one of these before." Rifleman Than cried. "I wintered in one three seasons ago."

"It looks manmade." Castle said.

Than shrugged. "Maybe. It's got a hedge of really sharp thorns around it, but you can lift them up and crawl inside. There's about a four-foot deep depression inside and the whole thing is a circle with a spring in the very center. It has fruit trees, too. The round yellow fruit is good, but the blue things taste like ashes." Than stopped for a minute. "I don't know how humans would react to the fruit. We had no humans with us."

"Okay, let's start crawling in."

Than got onto his back and began crawling, When he reached the hedge, he used his rifle to push the thorny hedge up. The hedge closed after he was inside, but he stuck his rifle under it again.

"Take the barrel of my rifle and push up while I push the butt up. Then everyone can crawl through."

When everyone was inside, Castle had them check the place out. It was about fifty feet across, did have a spring in the middle and was carpeted with something like very soft moss. The other side of the little depression faced an open prairie with more forest on the far side.

"We have yellow, blue and red fruit." Ryan said. "We should have three volunteers each try one."

"Three volunteers from each race." Kirta added. "These fruits might be different from those Rifleman Than encountered."

"I'll try the yellow fruit." Than said, grabbing one off a tree and eating it.

"Okay, I'll try a yellow one." Castle said.

Kate tried a blue one. She made a face.

"God! It tastes like ashes mixed with dog pee or something." She threw the rest of the fruit away.

Ryan tried a red one. He smiled. "Tastes like lemonade. Sweet lemonade."

After a half an hour there were no apparent ill effects from the fruit from any of the test subjects. Castle was about to tell everyone to start making dinner when they heard engine noises coming towards them.

They ran to the area facing the prairie. It was a tank slowly driving past them.

"Everyone stay down. We don't want to let them see us." However, Castle, Espo, Kirta and Jhana peered through the hedge.

"The turret is pretty far back." Espo said. "I'll bet the engine is in front and the ammo is in back. The Israelis have a tank like that."

Castle shook his head.

"That's not an Israeli Merkava. I saw some once. Either of you recognize it?"

Both Kirta and Jhana shook their heads.

There was a loud crack and a ball of fire was headed downrange.

"A missile?" Espo said.

"The Russians have missiles that can be fired through a tank's main gun, but that isn't any Russian tank I know of. But what the hell are they shooting at?"

"There!" Espo said. "Another tank. By those rocks. It must be three clicks away. Probably why they used a missile. Too far for the main gun."

The missile sped unerringly towards the distant tank, but then exploded in mid-air.

"They have some sort of active defense system. Knocked out the missile." Castle said.

By this time, the near tank had fired its main gun. They couldn't see where it hit, but it hadn't hit their target. The distant tank fired and they saw a gout of dirt shoot up to the right of the tank and some yards in front.

"Getting each other's range, I think." Jhana said.

She had no sooner spoken than the tank near them exploded. The turret was tossed in the air and landed all askew on the tank's hull. The remaining fuel and ammunition burned fiercely, flames shooting out of the damaged turret hatches and from the hull itself.

"No one got out of that." Espo said.

"Shit. The other tank is heading this way. Everyone down." Castle ordered.

Espo dug into his rucksack. He handed something to Castle.

"I've got a periscope. Comes in handy sometimes. You can watch the other tank and tell us it it's headed for us."

Castle watched as the other tank moved slowly towards its burning victim. About two hundred yards away, the tank stopped. Then the turret turned to face towards Castle's periscope. Castle swore under his breath. Then the turret swung away, then back again, and finally the tank moved to within a few yards of the still burning wreck of its opponent. Then the tank began moving and kept on going until it disappeared over a hill.

Castle slowly let out his breath,

"That scared the shit out of me." He turned to face his command. "Okay, no fires tonight and no noise. No nothing. If there are more tanks or any kind of armored vehicles out there and they find us, we're dead. Rifleman Than, to me."

Than crawled over to Castle.

"Have you ever seen a tank, or heard of one, or seen any evidence that a tank might be around?"

Than shook his head.

"I have never seen any sort of armored vehicle on this planet, or seen any evidence that there might be any around, except for one thing."

"And that was?"

"When I was with your Marines during my second season here, we ran across a four-wheel drive vehicle that mounted an anti-tank guided missile system. There were seven humans crewing the vehicle, but not humans from Earth and not females. Assuming that we were brought here for a reason and not just randomly, whoever brought us here must have thought that an anti-tank system would be useful."

"What can you tell me about the humans, their vehicle, their weapons? Anything at all."

Than shrugged.

"I can tell you very little. They were only with us for part of a day. They didn't want to ally with us because we were all foot mobile and they thought we'd slow them down. Which we would have. As for their equipment, they seemed to be equipped much like the Marines, with assault rifles and a light machine gun. No grenade launcher that I can recall. They wore protective vests and I remember they did have some sort of plate inserts. I don't recall their radios or night vision equipment. It was daylight when we saw them."

"No idea where they went?"

"No, Sergeant. And we never saw any sign of them again."

Castle brought all of his people together and told them about the battle between the two tanks and what Than had told him.

"Any kind of an armored vehicle could slaughter us. It would be nice to have one as a friend, but I think we'd be better off avoiding any we might run into. We'll rest here tonight and cross the prairie tomorrow and go into the woods. That'll give us cover if we do run across any armored vehicles. Eat your dinners cold and get some sleep."

Once he'd posted the first sentry shift, Castle snuggled down with Kate.

"You look worried, Babe."

"What, me worry? Why? I just have a whole planet that's trying to kill me and my girlfriend and my people off. Just another day at the office."

"Be serious." Kate said, poking him in the chest.

"So far, we haven't run into anything we can't handle. Armored men with light sabers, giant psycho grasshoppers, sheep riding killers, flying musketeers, or cannibals. Maybe whoever is behind this wants to up the game. See what we can do when we're the underdog."

"And who would that be who wants to test us?"

"The alien teenager whose high school science project is us. He's in orbit in Daddy's spaceship and he's got all six of his girlfriend's boobs in his six hands and he's saying, "Watch this, Sweetie."

"Speaking of boobs in someone's hands…"Kate said suggestively.

"Okay, just don't make any noise."

"_Moi_?"

Rick managed to keep Kate quiet, but it wasn't easy,

The next morning as they crossed the open plain and headed for another forest, Castle tried to check out the destroyed tank. The damage was too severe for him to get any idea who the tank had belonged to, or even anything about whoever had built it.

Once inside the forest, he relaxed. Things were going well, he thought. No, actually, things were going very well. A sense of contentment filled him. He saw Than, acting as point man, stumble. He laughed. _Now, that was funny_. He thought. _I should just sit down and relax. Take a load off._

He was so relaxed that he tripped and rammed his knee into a sharp rock. The pain sent a burst of adrenaline through him. He looked around. Spores were being spewed from giant mushrooms and something that looked like big white worms with teeth were headed for them.

"Get back!" He screamed. No one seemed to pay any attention, so he fired at one of the white worms and then at another. That seemed to alert the head of the column.

"Get back. The mushrooms are spraying something that's knocking us out. Get back."

He saw Than wheel around and almost fall, but he made it and took a shot at a worm, splattering it against a tree.

Castle grabbed both Kate and Than, then dragged them back away from the mushrooms. While Than shot at the worms, Castle supervised pulling everyone who had been affected away from the mushrooms and to the edge of the forest.

"Everyone okay?" Castle yelled.

Everyone seemed to be okay.

"Ryan, Anna, check everyone out. Make sure they're okay?'

"How am I supposed to do that?" Ryan screamed. "I have no fucking idea what's happened. How the fuck do you treat giant fucking magic mushroom exposure? And we have a whole squad that I have no clue how to treat for any fucking thing. I'm a fucking platoon medic. I should be able to call a dustoff chopper and get any wounded or sick to a real fucking hospital. All the way to the US if necessary. I fucking hate this whole planet." Ryan swung his rifle off of his shoulder and emptied his magazine into the mushrooms. Then he threw his rifle down and began crying.

Castle approached him.

"You okay, Kevin?"

"No."

"You gonna be okay in a bit?"

He made no reply for while, then nodded.

"I'll be okay. Just give me a minute." He took a deep breath. "We should move upwind. That would be north. I don't see any mushrooms to the north. I think we should stop here for the night to make sure there are no residuals. Okay?"

"Sure."

"Castle? Sorry about losing it. It won't happen again."

"It's okay, Kev. We're all under a lot of strain."

As Castle went to move his people to the north, both Anna and Than approached Ryan. Anna just put her arms around him.

Than spoke. "Sergeant Ryan, when I was with the Marines, they had a corpsman. He treated the injured as you do. He asked us Salwesi many questions about ourselves to try to find ways to help us. I remember our normal temperature is 98 of your degrees even. And he examined our first aid kits. You could do that."

Ryan nodded.

"Good idea. Anna and I will both do that."

They moved about a mile north and then Castle sent out patrols to make sure that there were no magic mushrooms or other dangers around. When the patrols came back, Castle called his people together.

"It's been a while since we had a day off. We'll stay here tomorrow and rest up. Then we'll keep moving."

That night, Rick and Kate snuggled together under a woobie.

"Are you okay, Babe?" She asked.


	12. Chapter 12

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"So far. But I'm starting to get like Ryan. I don't see any end to this. Every day there's just one more problem I have to solve and no real idea what's going on around me and I worry about losing you. Hell, I worry about losing any of my people. I already lost one and I've got one wounded still."

"You're not alone, you know. You've got me. And you have a lot of good people who'll help you."

"Don't think I don't appreciate you and all the rest. But I keep thinking about Than and imagining myself walking this planet by myself years down the road and remembering the dead I left behind."

"Well, I'm not dead. In fact, I feel kind of lively. Wanna make out, Castle?"

He did.

The next day was relaxing. There was some work to do, cleaning weapons, checking ammo, mending clothing and gear, but mostly it was a slow, quiet day.

That is, until just before dinner time.

"Hey! Is that you, Rifleman Than?" A voice called from the forest.

"Everybody take cover!" Castle yelled as people dove for their weapons and took cover.

"Who wants to know?" Castle yelled.

"Sergeant Johnny Cromwell. We know Than. Met up with him last season, but we got separated."

"Johnny! Is that really you?" Than called.

"Bet your ass it is. Can we come in?"

Castle looked at Than who nodded vigorously.

"Okay, come on in."

Eight people emerged from the forest, five humans and three Salwesi. Castle checked them over. The three Salwesi all had US Army weapons, protective vest and helmets, radios, web gear and even camouflage uniforms. Castle also noted that everyone seemed to be carrying an additional weapon and ammo and other gear. He stood up and went towards the newcomers, followed closely by Than.

"I'm Staff Sergeant Rick Castle, Third Ranger Battalion. I'm in command of this unit."

The leader held out his hand and Castle took it.

"Sergeant Johnny Cromwell, First of the Five Oh First, Fourth Airborne Brigade, Twenty Fifth Infantry Division. I guess you're in command of us now." Cromwell looked at the other unit. 'What exactly is this unit?"

Castle grinned.

"I guess I'm the Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Command, This Planet."

Cromwell grinned back. "Commander, Allied Forces Command, Deadly Planet, I'd say."

"I won't argue with you. Who do you have with you?"

Cromwell pointed his men out. "First is Corporal Dave Perry, SAW gunner." Perry was a tall, well built blond. "Our grenadier is Specialist Paulie Pignatorre. Do not call him Piggy." Pignatorre grinned and gave Cromwell the finger. "Next is our almost sniper and squad designated marksman, the pride of Mississippi, Specialist Mike Lowe. Last and certainly not least is our very own three-hundred pound Samoan, Pfc Aleki Sefina. He's also a grenadier. "

Lowe stepped forward. "I'm almost a sniper because I broke my arm on the last day of Ranger school and couldn't get a permanent assignment as long as I had a profile. For some reason they decided to send me to the sniper school at Benning to do the grunt work none of the instructors wanted to do. But I learned a lot. Our battalion commander is really hot for snipers, and tries to upgrade the SDMs as much as he can. I have an M 110 rifle that's been upgraded by one of the armorer sergeants, plus I got match grade ammo, more range time and I have a thermal imaging sight."

"What about your Salwesis?" Castle asked.

"We got three great guys. Riflemen Tark, Atab and Gorot. As we lost people, we divided up the gear we recovered so they're as well equipped as we are."

"I imagine you know Sergeant-Aspirant Kirta. If no one objects, I'll put you three under his command. Now, Cromwell, tell me your story from the beginning and don't leave anything out."

"We're stationed at Fort Richardson, Alaska. In the Alaskan summer, battalion decided to send groups of us out for some wilderness training. Each group was two squads plus, loaded into two Blackhawk helos and sent out into the middle of nowhere and told to find our way home. My group had two squads plus the platoon sergeant, a medic and a radio operator. Luckily, we were given live ammo because the backwoods of Alaska is full of bears, wolves, caribou, moose and even the occasional nasty human. The second day, all of a sudden, we woke up here, almost in the middle of Kirta's group. We were lucky no one started shooting, but we decided to join forces. There were twenty-two of us and twenty-five Salwesi. Kirta and his people had only been there for a couple of days, although Than had been there for years."

Cromwell shook his head. "We lost a few people, the platoon sergeant got killed by something that pulled him up into a tree. But, we got hit by the White Death."

Castle stopped him.

"I've heard of them from Than, but I don't remember all the details. Too damned much stuff to remember. Who are they?"

"They're huge mother fuckers. At least eight feet tall and four hundred pounds at least. Their skin coloring is dead white. When I was in high school we had an albino kid. They looked like him. And, we think they come from a colder world than this because all they wear is some kind of jockstrap and web gear. You have to fire a shitload of 6.8 or 7.62 mm ammo into to kill one which is why our spare weapons are all M 51s with the M 320 underslung grenade launcher. An HE grenade will kill them with one shot if you hit the head or torso and get lucky. I've seen one take two hits to the head and one to the chest and still keep going for a bit."

"We'll remember that." Castle said.

"Anyway, they caught us crossing a stream. A big tree trunk had fallen, making a bridge for us to cross. Than had tossed those needles, or whatever, in the stream to keep the damned killer fish away, but we knew it'd wash away real quick. But all of sudden they attacked us. They're armed with something like submachine guns, but being as big as they are, they fire a fifty-caliber round. Not as big as the rounds from one of our Ma Deuces, but they'll punch right through a SAPI plate like it was nothing. One of the damned things tossed that big old tree right into the stream. Someone blew his leg off with a grenade and he went ass over teakettle into the stream. He fought off those killer eels, but eventually he went under. After that, none of them tried to cross the stream."

"We retreated downstream with the white deaths following us on the other bank. Eventually, they stopped. When it was over, we were separated from the other group and we could hear gunfire upstream. We had eight US and five Salwesi that were unwounded and five badly wounded. We knew we couldn't cross upstream, we had already been there, so we continued downstream, hoping we'd find a place to cross. What we found was our stream fed into a big river. We stayed for a couple of days and the wounded died. Then we headed back."

"We found our dead where they'd fallen, mostly. Some had been carried off by scavengers and the rest had been eaten. We picked up what weapons, ammo and other gear we could and headed back upstream. Sergeant Rose, who was still alive and in charge, hoped we'd find some friendlies we could equip, figuring that whoever was supplying us would give us all the food, water, ammo and whatever we needed so we could carry the gear."

"And we found a friendly." Lowe broke in. "Or at least we thought he was friendly."

Cromwell nodded. "His mouth wasn't built for talking like a human, or a Salwesi. As near as we could figure out, his name was Bootsie. He was sort of humanoid with four arms and a head as big and as round as a basketball. He was carrying a flintlock rifle and a big knife when we ran into him. He couldn't wear a flak jacket or a helmet, but we gave him an M 51, ammo and web gear. After about two days, he said he was going to check something out in the forest. Maybe something checked him out, or maybe he just took off. We don't know. We kept going, losing people until we heard gunfire yesterday. I was sure it was an M 51 firing, so we headed for you, and here we are."

Castle then told Cromwell and his people about how his unit had come about.

"Sergeant Cromwell, you're now the leader of fire team Echo. My teams are Alpha and Bravo, the Moreans are Charlie and Delta. However, I'll need one of your grenadiers to fill a space in Alpha team since theirs got killed. Any volunteers?"

No one volunteered.

"I guess your people like working for you, Cromwell. So, we'll do rock, paper, scissors."

Pignatorre threw a rock and Sefina tried scissors.

"Okay, Sefina. You're with Alpha team, sergeant Van Ott. The other team leader, Sergeant Glesko, lost a hand and we've had to carry him in a stretcher, but Doc Ryan and Doc Konev say he's better and should be up and ready for duty in a couple of days. Kirta, what are you going to do with these three?"

"One for each of my fire teams. That way each team will have a US Army weapon, night vision goggle and a personal radio. Okay with you?"

Castle nodded.

"And I want your spare weapons and equipment handed over to the Moreans. And, the Moreans are soldiers, not whores, so you'll treat them with respect. Or else. That said, you'll find the ladies are quite friendly, as long as you behave. If you fuck up and I think you're worth having around, you'll be carrying everything heavy we have for a long while. If I don't think you're worth having around, you get left behind. If you try to follow us, you'll get a bullet. Did I make myself clear?"

Everyone nodded.

"Okay, we were just about to have dinner and settle in for the night. Make yourselves at home."

Just as the sun was setting, they heard a scream from deeper in the forest. Castle grabbed his weapon and ran towards the sound with Kate and Anna behind him. They found Lowe with one of the Morean women. She had her top off and had covered her boobs with her hands.

"What the fuck did you do to her?" Castle snarled, grabbing Lowe and pushing him against a tree.

"It wasn't me, it was that." Lowe yelled.

Castle turned around. On the far side of a small clearing was the biggest snake he had ever seen. It had lifted its head a good ten feet off the ground. In its hands it had some kind of a weapon. _If it has hands, is it still a snake?_ He thought.

Castle tried to smile.

"Hi there. Sorry about that. No harm, no foul. Right? We're good. Okay?"

The snake reared up another two feet and hissed a them. Then it backed off a bit and slithered off.

"Did you see that?" Lowe said. "That thing was fifty feet long if it was an inch."

By this time Van Ott's team had arrived.

"We have the camp ready for defense, Castle. What happened here?"

"The biggest fucking snake you ever saw, but he's gone now."

Kate noticed the Morean had taken her hands off of her boobs. They were D cups and did not sag a bit. They were capped with large pink nipples that were stiff.

"You should put your top back on." Kate said.

"Why? I'll just be taking it off again."

Corporal Jhana arrived.

"Dorca, put your damned top on. We'll all be staying close to the camp tonight."

"Why? The snake is gone."

"Maybe he left to tell his friends that he's found dinner." Ryan said.

They kept a good watch that night, but nothing happened.


	13. Chapter 13

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

The next morning, they found that the forest thinned out and then disappeared. Ahead was a vast rolling plain. Also, ahead of them was a pile of supplies.

Castle took out his compass.

"The supplies are almost due north. I think we're changing direction."

Two days later Ryan and Konev decided that Sergeant Glesko was ready to take over his fire team again. Castle didn't move his troops as fast as he previously had, and rest halts were longer. At the end of the day, Glesko came to him.

"Sarge, I appreciate what you're doing, but my problem is I'm just a little out of shape from being carried in a damned stretcher. My muscle tone is gone to hell, but I'm okay. I need to push myself to get back in shape."

Castle nodded. "Okay, but I'll be keeping an eye on you."

The next day they went back to their regular pace and the usual breaks.

Pfc. Gurwich was on point when he suddenly dropped to prone as he came over the crest of a small hill.

"Sergeant Castle!" He called.

Castle ran to him, followed by Kate with his radio and Sergeant van Ott. The rest of the troops took what cover they could and set up for a 360 degree defense.

"Is that what I think it is?" Castle said, looking through his binoculars.

"Sure looks like it to me." Gurwich replied.

"Me too." Kate added.

"Okay, let's go down and see if it is." Castle waved his troops forward.

When they got to it, Lowe let out a long, low whistle.

"Damn! A cherry 1967, candy apple red, Ford Mustang ragtop. Look at that. It's got tuck and roll leather seats, a walnut dashboard, a five-speed stick shift, the rally package and I'll bet it's got the big engine under the hood."

"Keys are in it." Van Ott said. He leaned in and turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. "Battery's dead. I'll bet it's out of gas."

"It's dirty." Lowe said. "Been here a while."

Kate checked the license plate.

"It has California plates and the registration sticker is from last year." She walked around and opened the glove compartment and took out the registration. "Registered to Miss Charity Spring's Modelling Agency with an address in Santa Monica. Everyone we've seen so far are soldiers, or at least armed. Why a model?"

"Why me?" Norwood said.

Kate just shrugged.

Corporal Perry spoke.

"I'm from LA. I've surfed all over, from Cabo San Lucas all the way to Mavericks. But mostly around LA, Manhattan Beach, Malibu, I even tried to surf between the pilings of the Santa Monica pier but.."

Castle snapped at him.

"Okay. We'll call you Big Kahuna or Moon Doggie from now on, but get to the point."

"I know the People's Republic of Santa Monica. The street address of that agency is in a kind of low rent area. There are a lot of modelling agencies in LA that are fronts for prostitution, or feeders for the porn industry or just plain scams. Maybe the people in the car weren't hot models, but enforcers for some pimp. A bunch of knuckle draggers would make sense on this planet."

"Van Ott, will you pop the trunk?" Kate asked.

"Looking for something?" He replied as he opened the trunk.

"Never can tell what you'll find."

"Anything?" Castle asked.

"The tool kit: Hammer, pliers, screwdrivers, even a tire gauge. And a jack."

"Think we'll need that?"

"Can you be sure we won't?"

Castle shrugged.

"We'll take it along."

The next several days found them running across more and more people, all of whom stayed well away from them. In the distance they saw a dust cloud which Castle checked with his binoculars. He thought it might be a herd of some sort of beasts or some kind of animal mounted cavalry. Eventually the dust cloud receded into the distance and disappeared.

Next a group of very tall green beings shadowed them from a distance. When Castle sent out a patrol to contact them, they vanished into the vastness of the prairie.

Early one morning, Preece, who was the point man that day, dropped prone as he crested a small hill.

"Sergeant Castle!" He called.

Castle ran to him, followed by Kate Beckett. They both dropped down beside Preece.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure."

Castle looked through his binoculars at the scene below them and better than a half mile away. He turned to Kate.

"Get the sniper team up here and make sure they have a spotting scope with them."

In seconds they were joined by Esposito and Milton.

"Take a look and tell me what you see."

Esposito took the scope and looked for several minutes.

"Looks like something from several centuries ago. They're in uniform, blue coats and white trousers with wide brimmed hats. Their rifles, or maybe muskets, are at shoulder arms, mostly. Looks like they have swords, or maybe really long bayonets."

"How many?" Castle asked.

"I see a column that's five abreast and the files are maybe fifty deep. There are two wagons following them pulled by…sheep? Really big sheep? Plus, there's another dozen soldiers trailing them. A rearguard or maybe stragglers."

"Nobody is going to straggle on this planet." Castle said.

"There's another half a dozen people in front of the column." Milton said, taking over the scope. "Probably the command group. Hell, two of them are drummers. I can see their drums slung over their shoulders."

"Look in front of them." Castle said.

Espo took the scope.

"Okay. I see them. They have a screen of skirmishers out front. They're in groups of two. I see ten groups…No, twelve."

"So, a little under a three hundred people?"

"Do we try to contact them?" Espo asked. "I don't think they'll add much to our firepower."

Before Castle could answer, they heard several high-pitched whistles.

"Their skirmish line ran into something. They're running like hell for the main body." Espo turned. "The rear guard are closing up, too."

The advance guard ran to the command group. There was a lot of pointing and shouting and then the drums started beating. The column began to break up as different groups marched around.

Suddenly Castle knew what they were doing.

"They're forming a square. There must be cavalry coming. Look! They're fixing bayonets. Any cavalry charge will run into massed musket or rifle fire and a hedge of bayonets."

"So, what will the cavalry do?" Espo asked.

"Hit and run, maybe. Try to wear them down. Or if they have artillery, they can stand back and shoot an infantry square to bits, then ride over the survivors."

It was more than an hour before the first of the cavalry arrived and nearly two before the full force arrived.

"What do you think?" Espo asked Castle.

"I see a lot of lances and swords, but no firearms and no artillery. There are a lot of them, though. A thousand anyway."

Espo spat. "At least a thousand."

"They're riding things that look like very shaggy horses with really long necks."

"Girrorses?" Espo suggested.

The others ignored that.

They watched as a single rider approached the square. He thrust the point of his lance into the ground and rode closer. They could see him gesturing to the commander of the infantry, but were too far away to hear what he said.

"What do you think he's saying?" Castle asked.

"Maybe he's asking for directions to the nearest Starbucks. There's one everywhere, so there must be one on this planet. What do you think?"

"Maybe he's asking if they've accepted Lord Cthulhu as their savior."

"As good a guess as any." Kate snarked.

"Okay, he's riding back to his people. I think the fecal matter I about to hit the rotary impellor."

The riders began circling the square, riding at a walk. Slowly they began to trot.

"Are they going after them like the Indians do with the wagon train in the old movies?" Preece asked.

Castle shook his head.

"They don't want the infantry to know which way they're coming from. That way the commander of the square can't take troops from the unengaged side to meet the attack."

As soon as Castle spoke, there were shots fired from the square. Not a whole volley, but occasional single shots. Most of them found their target.

"I bet they have a few rifles with them. If they all had rifles, more would be shooting. They're mostly armed with smoothbore muskets, I'll bet." Espo said. "You can't hit shit with a smoothbore musket at more than a hundred yards, generally less."

As if on cue, the cavalry began their charge. The infantry didn't respond with a massed volley from everyone on the side of the square being attacked, but with a rolling volley of one part of the side of the square after another. By the time the last volley had been fired, the first group had reloaded and fired another volley. And so it went, volley after volley.

The cavalry retreated in disorder.

"I bet those boys have never faced firearms before."

The cavalry drew off a good bit and there seemed to be some sort of animated discussion going on with what Castle assumed were the cavalry's leaders. Eventually, the cavalry came up with a plan. They formed up in a column ten riders across and a hundred or more deep. Then they charged.

At a hundred yards, the riflemen opened fire and animals began to go down.

"They're shooting at the mounts." Castle said. "They're bigger targets, so easier to hit. And knocking one horse down will cause those behind it to trip and fall as likely as not."

That was the case. At fifty yards, the square resumed their rolling volleys. The mounts either fell dead or screamed in pain and veered away from the square. Mounts behind them crashed into the dead and wounded animals, throwing the charge into confusion. Again, the cavalry retreated.

Again, there was a great deal of gesturing and shouting among the cavalrymen. Finally, some sort of agreement seemed to have been reached. The cavalry divided into two groups and headed for two previously un-attacked sides of the square so as to avoid the dead and wounded mounts and cavalry troopers that would block their attack. This time, instead of a massed column riding knee to knee, they attacked in an open formation with some ten feet between each rider.

Their mounts, seeing what they perceived as a solid wall ahead of them and frightened by the sounds of gunfire, mostly veered away. The riders tried, but failed, to bring their mounts under control.

One animal, wounded and mad with pain, did crash into the square and scatter a dozen or so infantrymen. But, before the cavalry could take advantage of this, a small reserve of a dozen men filled the hole in the square.

Again, the cavalry drew off. And, again, there was a long, drawn out discussion about what to do by the cavalry's commanders.

This time the riders rode down the face of the square, trying to stab the soldiers with their lances. To do so, they had to ride so close to the square that they were easy marks for the infantrymen.

Yet again, the cavalry drew back and discussed matters. Then, having come up with no good ideas, they formed up and rode off.

The infantry waited a half an hour, then came out to finish off the wounded and loot the dead. They also found several unwounded mounts that they brought in. Then they settled in for the night, lighting large bonfires in case they were attacked at night. When morning came and no cavalry appeared, the infantry marched off and were soon out of sight.

"Wow," Castle said. "No one's seen a fight like that in two hundred years."

"I could have skipped it." Kate said.

With that, Castle's command once more headed north.

Just before nightfall, they spotted a small grove of trees ahead of them.

"We'll stop there tonight. It'll give us cover." Castle said.

The night passed peacefully and they were ready to go just past dawn the next day.


	14. Chapter 14

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

Lowe, the point man, stepped out of the trees and began their march. The rest of the unit hadn't begun to clear the trees when a shot was fired at Lowe and he fell to the ground. There was a roar of motorcycle engines and twenty riders came roaring over a small hill, firing at Lowe as they went.

The battle, such as it was, didn't last long. Machine guns, assault rifles and grenade launchers tore into the bikers, killing them in seconds.

Ryan ran to Lowe.

"I'm okay, Doc. The bullet hit my plate. I didn't even get hit that hard."

"I'll be the judge of that." Ryan said, pulling the protective vest open. Luckily, Lowe wasn't injured and his SAPI plate only had a small dimple in it.

Meanwhile, Castle advanced towards the dead.

"Oh, shit. Look at their mouths. We've got fucking vampires on this planet."

Kate knelt by one.

"There are no vampires, Babe."

"There are none on Earth, but they have killer trees here and giant bugs and flying killers and now vampires."

"Look at their teeth." Kate said. "They have no holes in the fangs. How would they drain the blood from a person? Besides, they're out in daylight. Shouldn't that burn them up or something?"

"So they rip peoples throats open and drink the blood. And who says vampires from here have to be allergic to sunlight?"

"Do you think there's a Harley-Davidson dealership on this planet? Because that's what they're riding. And this one has a Glock." Kate found the dead man's wallet. "He has a Texas driver's license. Says he lives in El Paso." She turned him over. "His jacket says "Los Vampiros MC, El Paso, Texas." These are outlaw bikers from Earth, Babe."

Meanwhile Sharon Hayes was checking the dead.

"Hot damn! This one has a Colt 1911A1, and spare clips." She rummaged in his saddlebags, "And more .45 ammo, and, holy motherfucker! He has an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels."

"You already have a Colt." Espo said. "Why do you want another?"

"You can never have too many Colt .45s, pretty boy. Never"

Kate looked over the carnage.

"They have one shotgun and the rest are armed with pistols, all some kind of 9mm that I can see. I suggest that everyone that doesn't have a pistol grab one and gather up all the 9mm and shotgun ammo and any leftover pistols. One day our friends may stop sending us supplies."

As the soldiers moved around picking up weapons and ammo, Kate walked over to Rick.

"I found this for you, Babe." She handed him a Glock 26 pistol.

"I have a pistol already." He said, tapping the Sig at his waist.

"I know, but I carry a Glock 26 as a backup. Norwood gave mine back to me just now. This is your backup piece."

"My backup piece is my Sig since my M 51 is my primary weapon. So you want me to have a backup for my backup piece?" He said with a smile.

She leaned into him.

"Exactly. And remember, I'm your primary piece and you have no backups to me. Understand?"

"Always."

The column moved on. For four days they marched north. They saw two or three groups of people each day, always groups that were much smaller than they were. And, when seeing Castle's column, they'd head away from it as rapidly as they could.

"Why are they running from us, Babe?" Kate asked. "You'd think people would want to join a big, heavily armed group like ours. We have more than fifty well-armed people. You'd think people would at least try to join us."

Castle shook his head.

"And everybody on this planet is trying to kill everyone else. We're just too scary. No one is going to want to come near us."

That was disproved that afternoon.

The point man held up his arm, indicating the column should stop.

"Sergeant Castle. We have company."

Castle ran to the front of the column followed by Kate and the radio and Sergeant Cromwell whose team had provided the point man.

"They're headed straight for us now, but when I first saw them, they were headed east, not north like us." The point man said.

Castle raised his binoculars.

"Okay, we're about to be visited by seven frogs and a rabbit. And they're pretty heavily loaded."

Seen up close Gunner Choda Harrankas and his people didn't look much like frogs aside from being green. They were all at least three or four inches taller than Castle.

The "rabbit" had grey skin and large, floppy ears. He was called Anber the Seventh, having been born the seventh of a litter of nine.

Gunner Choda, family names were first among his people and then given names, explained why they had sought out Castle's unit.

"We are to die anyway, so perhaps we can bring the white death along with us if we combine."

"The white death? I've heard of them, and nothing I heard made me want to meet any."

"Sergeant Castle, they are perhaps a day behind us. We have a weapon that will do great damage to them. Perchance if the Old Gods smile upon us, we might kill them all, but that is unlikely. There are twenty of them. More than enough to see to us all."

Gunner Choda's weapon was a 15 millimeter machine gun, now broken down into man, or at least humanoid, portable loads. Choda showed them the cartridges which were larger and heavier than the US .50 caliber machine guns they were familiar with. The weapon had two spare barrels, and the barrels themselves were made of manufactured diamonds. Everyone was very impressed with the weapon, even those who had fought the white death before.

Choda came from an ancient planet. The planet's sun had begun to heat up, slowly, but surely, making the planet less and less habitable. The world's oceans, once about the size of Earth's had shrunken to fifty percent of their former size. Nations had collapsed, leaving in the wake a series of city states that fought endlessly over the remaining resources.

"My company was sent across an old, dried up seabed in search of a rumored lost city that hadn't been looted of its treasures. Finding such lost tech could mean the survival of my people for another generation or two. And we found it." Choda said with a smile." And then, in a flash, we were here. We came to with the grey cannibals grabbing us and killing us. We lost half of my company that day. Senior Gunner Plaut took command, but he died. Then Gunner Osranti, who also died. Now I am in command of this remnant. But we have a good weapon and our own personal weapons."

In addition to the machine gun, each man carried an assault rifle that fired a 5.5 mm slug and two men also had pistols.

Anber the Seventh was depressed. He was from yet another planet. He was from a tribe of nomads who were armed with swords, spears and other iron weapons. They had been recruited as mercenaries by a more advanced nation and given single shot, breech loading rifles. Anber still carried his sword, but had exchanged his breechloader for an assault rifle.

"Four litters from my sire and my dam were armed and sent to fight. We were so thrilled with our new weapons. We felt invincible. And then we found ourselves here. The great white killers tore into us, killing our males and our mounts as well. I managed to grab a weapon from one of the dead green ones, but it was as useless as a baby's fist against a tribal champion. I shot at the monsters as they killed and killed, but nothing happened. Now all of my brothers are lost. How can their souls find their ancestors in this strange place? Are they not doomed to walk alone in this strange place for all eternity? None of my people have ever seen such a calamity. Should I return, how could I explain this to their ancestors and to their kin? How could I explain if I alone survived?"

"The explanation will be easier if you can tell them you took revenge against the killers of your kin." Castle said.

Anber nodded. "There is truth in what you say. Revenge will ease the pain of all of my kin who died. I will fight with you and die with you, if needs be."

Castle scanned the horizon.

"There's a big stand of trees we just passed. I suggest we try to fortify it and wait for the white death there."

"A good plan." Gunner Choda agreed.

The troops began digging in and cutting down what trees they could to build bunkers. Gunner Choda dug several positions for his heavy machine gun, covering possible avenues of approach.

Castle noticed that when the machine gun was assembled, they had mounted a large, flat rectangular object on top of the gun.

"What is that?" He asked.

"A small radar." Choda answered. "We can detect movement at night or in bad weather. We can also discern the size of something."

"Let me show you something." Castle called Esposito over and had him demonstrate the thermal imager.

"It picks up heat sources. I'll bet it gives you a better picture than your radar."

"Can it be mounted on my weapon?"

Espo examined the machine gun and shook his head.

"The mount isn't compatible with my imager, but if we see something, we can tell you approximately where to point your radar and you can take it from there."

They worked well past nightfall until Castle stopped them.

"We're dug in pretty good. We should worry about getting some sleep, but first we'll have a quick meal. We have enough First Strike rations for the humans and for the Salwesi. I don't know if you can eat our rations, Gunner Choda. We can give you one if you'd like to try."

Choda smelled the ration in Castle's hand.

"it smells all right, but we'll eat our own food tonight. We don't want to be ill when the battle comes."

Anber held out his hand.

"All I had was some bread and cheese and it's now gone. And the green ones' rations make me ill."

Castle handed over the ration. He then gathered his fire team leaders together with Choda who had been named leader of fire team Foxtrot.

"Okay, remember what we learned from Rifleman Than and from Choda. The white death are big and tough. It'll take a lot of rifle or SAW fire to bring one down. Our longest range weapons are Choda's machine gun and Sergeant-Aspirant Kirta's mortar. They can open fire at a thousand yards or so. Our grenade launchers are our next best weapon and we have a lot of them and a lot of ammo. Grenadiers, you can open fire at six hundred yards along with everyone else. Try to hit their heads or chest. Esposito, aim for their mouths or eyes. That's the only way you'll penetrate their skulls. One other important thing. According to Than, they're arrogant as hell. They won't try any fancy maneuvers, they'll just come straight at us. We should have a target rich environment."

There were a few chuckles at that.

"Okay. Eat and get some sleep. We're likely to have a busy day tomorrow."

No one slept well that night, but when dawn arrived, the white death still hadn't arrived. No one complained.

Esposito was the first one to see the white death approaching.

"Here they come." He called out.

"Where?" Castle said, running to him as his troops took their positions.

"They just disappeared behind that far hill. I checked the distance with my rangefinder yesterday. It's 1800 meters away."

"How many?"

"I saw four."


	15. Chapter 15

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"Only four? Choda said there were twenty."

He ran to Choda.

"Espo says there are only four of the white death coming. You said there were twenty. Could they he trying to flank us with the rest of their force?"

"I don't think so." Choda said.

"Sergeant Castle?" Than said, having overheard the conversation. "I believe the white death think there is only Gunner Choda and his team here. They are _very_ arrogant. They would think that four was enough to overwhelm Choda. I do not believe there are more of them out there."

Castle thought and made a quick decision. He began placing his troops so that almost all faced the advancing four white death, leaving only a few to keep guard in other directions. By now the four were over the hill and approaching them. Castle told Choda to engage the one on the far left along with Kirta's light mortar. His own M 240 machine gun and the Morean Marines' light machine gun took the next one, Kirta's medium machine gun the third, and his heavy machine gun took the one on the far right. The grenadiers were similarly given one of the targets as well as the other troops.

"They're coming up on a thousand meters." Espo called out. "Once past that big stump, they'll be in range."

Castle waited until they were several paces beyond the stump and screamed, "Open fire!"

Castle watched through his binoculars as the heavy 15 millimeter bullet tore into the leftmost alien. He should have been torn apart but all that happened was that he leaned forward a bit as if advancing into a strong wind. The 50 millimeter mortar shells exploded around him, spattering him with shrapnel, but no direct hits.

At six hundred yards the remainder of his force opened fire. Castle was shocked. A firestorm that should have shredded a force three times this size was seemingly having no effect on the advancing monsters, and they were starting to return fire. Castle saw Choda's machine gunner go spinning away from the weapon with half his head missing. Another instantly took his place.

Finally, there was evidence their fire was having some effect. The leftmost white death was hit by a grenade in the knee. His left leg collapsed under him. He pulled himself upright, but was unable to move forward. He still was able to shoot and Castle saw one of the Morean Marines go flying backwards, spraying blood. Two grenades to the head finally killed him.

Konev raised her repeating grenade launcher and fired three grenades in rapid succession. The first one hit the alien in the chest, the second missed. The third missed also, but exploded at his feet, showering him with burning white phosphorus. The burning phosphorus didn't seem to bother him, but his web gear carrying his extra ammo caught fire. The first bullet that exploded set off a chain reaction that included two grenades. When the smoke cleared, they could see the white death trying to push his intestines back into his body. After several more grenades and bursts of machine gun fire aimed at his stomach, he collapsed.

Castle saw the two left most white deaths finally keel over and lay still, but the others were within two hundred yards.

As the fire changed to engage the final two, a burst from Choda's machine gun smashed the one on the right's weapon, destroying it. The alien charged at full speed. He leapt into the heart of their defenses and picked Hayes up with one massive hand, roaring as he did so. Before he could do more, Lowe jumped up and using the alien's arm, pushed himself up even with the alien's open mouth. He threw a baseball sized M 67 grenade into his mouth. The white death dropped Hayes and clawed at his throat. There was a muffled thump and blood and tissue shot from his mouth. Then he collapsed, face down.

The last white death was now the target of the whole unit's fire. In a minute he was dead as well.

Castle stood up and looked around, stunned at what he'd seen. Then his training kicked in.

"Casualties? Alpha team?"

There was no reply. Castle looked around.

"Van Ott? Casualties? Are you hit?"

"No. We're fine. Not a scratch. Not one fucking scratch." Then van Ott began giggling.

"Bravo Team?"

"Preece is dead. Bravin is hit. I don't know if he'll make it."

Castle could see that Kate, Ryan, Konev, both snipers, and Norwood were okay. Hayes was still on the ground.

"You okay, Sharon."

"I'm going to have a fucking monster sized bruise. I hope no one thinks that motherfucker gave me a hickey."

"Machine gun team. Moronta?"

"I'm okay, but I think Reyes' arm is busted."

"It damn will is." Reyes Moronta called. "And I have no fucking idea how that happened."

"Team Charlie?"

"Two dead Marines and one wounded. I don't think the wounded one will make it."

"Delta?"

"Two dead."

"Echo?"

"Cromwell and Piggy are dead. And I think Perry is fucked." Lowe finally answered.

"Team Foxtrot?"

"Two dead and Gunner Choda is wounded. We have no medic and no thought as to how to heal him."

"I have had my revenge and can tell my people's kin and ancestors of that." Anber added.

Castle shook his head.

"Ryan, Konev and all the CLS's, get busy. We'll try to save everyone no matter what it takes. If you need anything, let me know."

"What in the fuck is that?" Hayes said.

"It wasn't there ten seconds ago." Lowe said.

Ryan looked up from a wounded Morean.

"Jesus, Mary and all the saints."

"What is it, Ryan." Castle demanded.

"My grandad had a photo of a place just like that. It had belonged to his grandfather. It was from back in Ireland."

The place was a whitewashed building with a thatched roof and smoke coming from a chimney not a hundred yards away. They could see red and yellow flowers planted around the front of the building. The door was wide open.

"Okay, Esposito, Milton, you're with me. We'll go see what this fucked-up planet has for us now."

As they moved out, he saw Norwood was tagging along.

"Janice, you'll have to stay here."

"Oh? What about her?"

Castle turned around to find Kate right behind him.

"You need a radio operator. And don't think you're going anyplace without me. Ever."

He knew when he was beaten.

"Okay, we'll all go together."

The quickly made it to the front door. Over the door was a sign. On it was painted an 18th century grenadier in a red coat and a mitre hat. Below the painting were the words, "The Jolly Grenadier."

They walked inside.

Castle was hardly surprised that the pub was larger on the inside than on the outside. It appeared to be one large room with polished hardwood floors covered by numerous colorful throw rugs. There were comfortable looking chairs, several sofas and what appeared to be dining tables. At the far end of the room was a fireplace and a cheery fire. At the other end was a long mahogany bar with a brass rail with a mirror behind it. Standing at the bar was a smiling, redhaired man of indeterminate age in a white shirt with a green bow tie.

"Top o' the mornin' to ye, Sergeant Castle an' welcome ta the Jolly Grenadier."

"And you are?" He said with a sigh.

"Oi'm the landlord here. Me name's Michael Patrick, but everyone calls me Mick. Now, would ye be wantin' a nice cold Guinness? I knows ye Americans like yer beer cold."

He walked to the bar.

"I'd rather have a Dos Equis, please."

Mick smiled and reached under the bar and came up with a frosty cold bottle of Dos Equis. Castle took it and took a small sip. It tasted like Dos Equis beer. He took a larger sip.

"So how did you get here?"

Mick smiled.

"They sent me."

"Who in the hell are they?" Esposito growled.

"Who the hell are they?" Mick chuckled. "Why they're plain and fancy they. And they're sometimes known as them. You've all been talking about them and they all your lives. "They really screwed me, bro." Or, "Oi was lucky they came along jist in time." He laughed. "Who the hell are they?"

"And what did they send you here to do?" Castle asked.

"Why ta do what any good barman would do. Oi'll provide ye wit food an' drink an' more things. And ye'd better be getting your people inside. Tha rain is startin'."

Castle looked outside. It was starting to rain and rain heavily. He sighed.

"Espo, take your team and bring everyone in here. Wounded included."

"You sure it's a good idea."

"I don't think anything that's happened on this planet has been a good anything, let alone a good idea."

The three left. Castle turned back to Mick only to find Kate was drinking his beer.

"Another one for me, Mick."

Another beer appeared.

"I thought you Irish didn't much like the English?"

Mick frowned.

"We hates the bloody Sassenachs. Why do ye ask?"

"Your sign has a picture of a Redcoat. An Englishman."

"An Englishman? Nivir! Hae ye nivir heard of the Wild Geese?"

"Wild Turkey, yes. Wild Geese, no."

"From the toime o' the Flight o' the Earls in 1607 followin' the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland to the Napoleonic Wars, young Irishmen, facing nothing at home but poverty an' oppression, offered their swords to the Catholic powers of Europe, mostly France and Spain. Why the French had an entire Irish Brigade, wi' the Regiments Bulkeley, Clare, Dillon, Berwick, Rooth, Lally, an' Fitzjames' Horse. They wore red coats because that's what soldiers wore, in their minds. Plus, they wanted the bloody English to know they were Irish, not bloody French. The feller on me sign is a grenadier frae Regiment Clare, Boyo. An Englishman! Nae bloody likely."

The troops began coming into the pub. The first were the wounded, being carried. They were taken near the fire and gently put down.

"What the hell is this place?" Ryan asked.

"It's a pub. They sent it. And don't ask for a more intelligible explanation." Castle said. "How are the wounded?"

"They'll die. There isn't one fucking thing we can do about it."

Suddenly Sergeant Glesko grabbed at the stump where his left hand had been.

"Fuck! That hurts." He cried, bending over in pain.

"Have a bit o' Guinness, lad. It'll help."

Glesko grabbed the beer and downed it, then smiled.

"Hey! I feel fine." Then he looked at his stump. "What the fuck! Castle!"

There, growing out of his stump was a tiny hand, smaller than a newborn's, but a human hand none he less.

"A hand?" Castle turned to Mick. "He's growing a hand? Did they do this?"

"I told the lad the Guinness would help. P'rhaps ye'd give some to yer other wounded?"

Bottles of Guinness appeared on the bar. Everyone grabbed a bottle and headed for the wounded.

"Will this work on the dead?" Castle yelled, while helping a Morean Marine to drink.

"I fear not, lad. Death is a bit permanent, even here."

Corporal Jhana fed some beer to one of her Marines.

"I don't believe it. Dorca had an open head wound. You could see her brain, now the skull is growing back. Shit, even her hair is growing back."

Castle went from one wounded trooper to the next. All were recovering, well, miraculously.

He went back to Mick.

"They're going to be okay?"

"Of course, lad. Now, wouldn't you like something to eat?"

Castle shook his head. This was weird. Good, but weird.

"Okay. Can you make me a double chili cheeseburger with garlic fries and another Dos Equis?"

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Mick reached behind the bar and came back up with his order.

"Sumpin frae ye as well, Detective Beckett?"

"Can you make a Dagwood sandwich, like Slotsky's Deli made back when…"

"Ye'd go ta Mass wi' yer Ma and Da' an' yer Ma an' ye would split one 'cause you couldn't eat a whole one?"


	16. Chapter 16

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

Mick reached below the bar and brought out Kate's order, complete with the glass of lemonade she'd always ordered at Slotsky's. No matter what was ordered, Mick simply reached below the bar and provided it. Soon even the severely wounded were eating just a little bit.

"They'll all be all right?" Castle asked anxiously when he was done with his food.

"Ye'll be leavin' tomorrow an' they'll be foine. Better than foine."

"What if we get attacked here?"

Mick laughed.

"Nae force on this planet could attack ye. They won't let it happen."

Castle just shook his head and went over to Kate.

"Want to fool around tonight?" He asked.

"I thought you'd never ask."

When they left the next morning, all of the wounded were in perfect health. But, as they had lost nine dead, Castle reorganized his own squad. He decided to break up Echo team and put the two surviving soldiers in Alpha and Bravo teams. The other teams were reorganized by their own leaders. The weapons and other gear of their dead were carried with them.

When the topped a small hill, Castle looked back. The Jolly Grenadier was gone. He wasn't surprised.

For the rest of that day and the next, they saw no one, but did see evidence of others: Tracks, bloody bandages, discarded food containers and expended ammunition. Once they heard a brief chatter of gunfire in the distance, but that was over quickly.

The day after that, they found a forest barring their way north.

"Should we go through it, or around it?" Kirta asked.

"They, whoever they are, have been moving us north. We'll go north."

Mostly the forest was old growth and didn't impede their march. Suddenly, the point man threw up his hand, indicating a stop. Castle moved forward.

"What is it?"

"He's just standing there." Johnson said. "He's looking straight at us, so I'm sure he sees us."

Ahead of them was a centaur, standing against a tree and just staring at them.

Castle went forward.

"Hi there. I'm Sergeant Rick Castle. I have a group of people with me. How are you?"

The centaur tracked him with his eyes, but said not a word.

Castle took another step and saw that the centaur's only weapon, a crossbow, was laying on the ground a good ten yards from him, well out of reach.

"I'm going to call my people forward. Is that okay?"

He called to Johnson to tell the rest of his unit to continue, but taking another step he saw why the centaur was so still.

"Damn! Someone set a trap for you. Caught your hind leg." A steel trap held the centaur's leg. He turned. "Ryan. Come here. I have a patient for you."

Castle and Ryan approached the centaur carefully, but while he did look nervous, the centaur did not react. The two humans knelt by his hind leg. Ryan did his best to examine him.

"I don't think his leg is broken, but he does have a nasty gash there. I think we can open the trap and let him loose. We can jam the trap open with a rock." He stood and faced the centaur. "We're going to free you. I don't know if our medicine would hurt you or help you, but I can suture the cut on your leg. Okay?"

The centaur said nothing.

They removed his leg from the trap, and Ryan sutured the wound.

"You might want to get that looked at when you get back to…wherever." Castle said.

The centaur pointed to Castle and then to the east.

"You headed east?"

The centaur pointed to himself and then pointed west. He then pointed to Castle and then to the east.

"We should go east?"

The centaur galloped off.

"So, what should we do?" Ryan asked as the rest of the troops gathered around. "He ought to be grateful to us for that, but given what this planet is like…" Ryan let the sentence trail off.

"The time we saw centaurs, they didn't attack us. They didn't attack Than when he ran into them, either. That makes them pretty unique around here. We'll go east for a bit."

They moved through the forest for an hour. Castle was about to turn them north again, when the forest gave way to a rolling plain.

"Something ahead of us." Johnson called out. 'Some kind of vehicle, maybe."

As they headed for it, Choda and his team suddenly began to run.

"It's number 14. It's one of our vehicles."

Number 14 was a small, four-wheel all-terrain vehicle with a trailer attached to a tow bar. Choda looked it over.

"It's fully charged. The paint absorbs sunlight and charges the battery." He pushed the starter and the engine began to purr. He checked the rear deck of the vehicle and the trailer. "It has two boxes of machine gun ammo on the back and four in the trailer. There's plenty of room for our spare weapons and equipment."

"Any idea how it got here?" Castle asked.

Choda shrugged.

"It was with us when the white death hit us, but I lost track of it thereafter. Perhaps one of our people took it, or one of Anber's, or even a white death. There's no sign of anyone around here."

"Our army has vehicles like this. It'll outrun us pretty fast. Then what?"

"This vehicle was designed for use by foot mobile infantry. While it can go fast, it's mostly designed to drive at walking speed. We'll have no trouble."

"Okay. Load your machine gun into the trailer and we'll fit the rest of our stuff in around it. How much can it carry before it's overloaded?"

"It'll carry more than we have."

In half an hour the column set off, more lightly loaded than they had been and happier on that account.

They marched along the edge of the forest until it gave way to more prairie. An hour before dusk, they saw a pile of supplies to the west.

"It looks like they expected us to go straight through the forest." Castle said.

"I wonder why we've never run across some other groups' supplies. We've seen plenty of people that have gotten fairly close to us. You'd think we'd find some."

Castle shrugged.

"Ask them, whoever they are."

Kate snorted.

"I feel like asking who's on first."

"And you'd be right."

"What?'

"Second base."

"I don't know."

"You're making this too easy."

"You want easy? Try me tonight." She walked away, swinging her hips.

It was another day and they were still on the prairie. Castle suddenly stopped.

"Hear that?"

Everyone listened.

"It sounds like an…"Kate began.

"Engine!" Castle screamed. "Everyone down."

He searched the horizon for some sign of a tank or other vehicle.

"Can anyone see anything?"

"No…"Anber said. "Wait! Yes. It's in the air. Above us."

Castle looked up and saw two airplanes headed for each other, high above them.

"Anyone recognize them?" He asked.

No one did.

Castle thought back to an airshow he'd gone to as a teenager. It had featured some old, restored WWII warbirds. He thought they had looked like the aircraft above him: Propeller driven monoplanes with camouflage paint jobs.

The two aircraft sped past each other, then turned back. They turned, dove, pulled up and finally they heard the rapid thump of cannons. The dogfight continued for long minutes until one aircraft pulled away, trailing smoke. It went into a gentle dive, followed at a distance by the other aircraft. Then it exploded in a ball of flame. Burning parts fell to the ground. The other plane flew off.

"I didn't see the pilot get out." Castle said.

"He didn't." Ryan confirmed. "No point in looking for him, or her, or it."

The prairie ended in a huge expanse of very tall, thick grass that towered over the tallest of them. Rick lifted Kate on his shoulders, but she could see no end to it in any direction. When Rick tried to push the thick grass out of the way, he pulled his hand back. It was bleeding.

"Fuck. That's razor sharp. We'll have to cut our way through. I'd recommend everyone put on gloves, wrap scarves or something around your faces and wear any long-sleeved shirt you have. We could really get cut up by this crap."

They chopped through the grass all day long, changing the two point-men who did the chopping every half an hour. At the end of the day, they cut a large swathe of the grass and settled for the night. One of the Marines saw a pile of supplies not three feet from them. They must be headed in the right direction.

They began again the next day and again spent the whole day chopping the tall, thick and very sharp grass. In spite of their precautions, every one of them had cuts. Ryan and Konev were kept busy.

The next day they began again. Near midday, Anber and Milton were chopping away when they suddenly were confronted by two beings cutting their way through the grass in the opposite direction. All four had their rifles slung over their shoulders.

Milton was the first to react.

"Hi. I'm Bill Milton and this is my pal, Anber. Who are you?"

The two other beings were humanoid being of average height, but rather stocky. They had an epicanthic eye fold with skin the color of mahogany. One smiled, then turned to call over his shoulder.

"Sergeant Pellon, you need to see this."

Both Sergeant Pellon and Castle arrived at the same time.

"I'm Sergeant Richard Castle, Third Ranger Battalion, US Army. I'm in command of the unit here."

Pellon, unlike the others, was human.

"Sergeant Daman Pellon, commanding what's left of Auxiliary Platoon 517, Fifth Colonial Infantry Regiment, Army of the Empire of D' Allande. You're human?" Pellon frowned. "But not from Cheaboll. Is this your home world?"

"We're from a planet called Earth. Well, some of my people are. We have three types of non-humans with us. Apparently, you have non-humans as well."

Pellon nodded.

"The Krait. Good soldiers, but not as technically advanced as we."

"We should cut some of this grass down so we can sit and talk." Castle suggested.

"Not necessary. We're barely two hundred yards into this. Follow me. We'll go back to the plains."

Once on the plains, Castle gave a rundown on his unit, their weapon and other equipment and the histories of their home planets. He also examined Pellon and his troops. There was one more human in the unit, a tall, thin, curly haired fellow called Private Anbollander. There were fourteen Kraits. Twelve were armed with bolt action rifles. One, had a telescopic sight and another had a rifle grenade launcher mounted on the end of the barrel. Two Kraits manned a machine gun not unlike the old German WWII MG 42 that Castle had once seen in a demonstration of odd weapons given by a Special Forces sergeant. The two humans were armed with submachine guns and Pellon had a pistol at his hip as did the assistant machine gunner.

All wore camouflage uniforms, although they seemed to be much faded and worn. Each one also had a wide brimmed tan hat, also much faded and worn.

The Empire of D' Allande was a globe straddling empire on a world not unlike Earth. As with many empires, D' Allande raised troops from their conquered colonies. The Krait were a minority in their homeland and had been oppressed by their native rulers. When the Empire came, they were more than happy to serve in the Empire's army against their former oppressors.

Anbollander turned out not to be from the Empire.

"The only good thing about this fucking planet is that I can finally understand Pellon and his fellows. I'm from Ganderfallken. We've been fighting the Empire for twenty years. Not a big war, but raids on land, sea and air. But if you get captured you go into a POW camp. Oh, they're not bad. Food is okay. The guards aren't bad. But after a couple of years, you start to go stir crazy. The only way out of the camps is to volunteer to fight in a Colonial Infantry unit. So here I am. And now I'm on this fucked up planet."

Pellon explained what had happened to them.


	17. Chapter 17

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"We were in the mountains going after a bandit gang. We settled in for the night and the next thing we knew, we were in this shithole being attacked by a bunch of grey…things. Lieutenant Dorunt got killed right off. Shot through the head. Warrant Officer Hullenken was gut shot and was dragged off by the grey bastards. The Great God alone knows what happened to him."

Castle interrupted.

"Sounds like you were hit by grey cannibals. They probably ate him."

"Shit! Ate him. Shit." Pellon cursed under his breath. "We got away but lost over half our platoon. We had fifty-three going in and twenty-four when we finally shook them off. The only other sergeant to survive was jumped by some eight-legged horror. We killed it, but not before it broke poor Nellonker's neck. Others have died and now we're here. Like you, we find food, water, ammo and other necessities."

Castle made a snap decision.

"We lost nine dead in a fight a while back, but we still have their weapons and other gear. If you'll join us, we can equip you with our weapons, protective vests, helmets and personal radios."

Pellon wasted no time in agreeing. The nine weapons went to nine of the Krait riflemen. The sniper, the rifle grenadier and the machine gunners kept their own weapons. Pellon and Anbollander kept their submachine guns and declined body armor or helmets.

"Take care of your men first, they say." Pellon explained.

To which Anbollander added, "If Pellon eats a bullet, I'd rather eat one too rather than be left in command of this clusterfuck."

Since Pellon's people had been moving south while he'd been moving north, Castle worried that they, whoever they were, wouldn't provide them with supplies for Pellon's force. However, supplies for all were waiting them at the end of the day.

Two nights later, Castle got a chance to talk to Anbollander.

"You don't seem to be too happy with your unit."

Anbollander shrugged.

"It's a soldier's job to complain. I happen to be good at it. Yes, I could be nice and safe back in the POW camp, but…"

"But what?"

"I was nineteen when I went in the bag. In the camp there was a fellow who'd been in for nineteen years. I kept thinking about spending half my life and more in there. After a while, a Colonial unit looked pretty good. They promised us we'd never have to fight against our fellow Ganderfallkeners and they've kept that promise. There are eleven races on our planet, how the hell we all got there, no one knows. So, there's plenty of work for the Colonials. And the Krait are good. Their overlords called themselves God's Selected and told the Krait they were animals. Treated them like animals, too. When the Empire attacked, the Krait volunteered in mass. It's been about a generation since the takeover, so the Krait are not just in the army, but police, civil service and some technical fields. The Empire has set up schools, hospitals, model farms and much more for the Krait. God's Selected won't go near them, although they're welcome. Fools."

"How long have you been a Colonial soldier?"

"Four years."

"And you're only a private?"

"Twice a corporal and twice busted. And to make sergeant you have to become an Imperial citizen. I've thought about it, but it's a little late now."

They continued north across the plains. As before, they would see groups of people in the distance, but they always moved away from Castle's column. Once Castle saw a large band of mounted beings on a ridge some distance away.

"Kind of looks like Indians from the old western movies." Lowe said as Castle pulled out his binoculars. It was hard to tell at that distance, but Castle was sure the riders were mounted on Earth horses. There appeared to be several races among the riders, and much like the Indians on the old western movies, they had painted their faces and donned feathered bonnets. While he did see a few lances and swords, the riders seemed to be armed with firearms. Castle watched a rider who seemed to be the leader as he appeared to be giving orders to the others. He was pretty sure the man was human, but at that distance and with the paint on his face, it was impossible to tell. After watching for ten minutes, they rode off.

Eventually, they once again entered an old growth forest.

"We've been here before."Pellon said. "A bit east of here, but I'm sure we're in the same damned forest."

Just inside the forest, the point man motioned for the column to stop. Castle moved to him.

"Dead grey cannibal just ahead. Just by that tree to the right."

Kate was right behind him and Castle got on the radio.

"Everyone, listen up. We have a dead grey cannibal ahead. Alpha come to me. We'll go check him out. The rest of you, set up a 360 degree defense. I'll keep you informed."

The fire team with Castle and Beckett moved slowly forward.

"Got an arrow through his throat. A through and through. Well, almost all the way through." Van Ott said. "Good for whoever wasted him."

A quick search of the area found no dead of any race, nor anyone alive. They moved on cautiously.

The next body they found wasn't a grey cannibal.

"Looks kinda like a human sized ant." Van Ott said. "Definitely an exoskeleton, got kind of long legs, and he's got four arms."

"And a fucking big bullet hole in his chest." Hayes added. "If it's big ants with bows and arrows against grey cannibals with guns, the ants are fucking fucked."

They moved slowly through the forest, finding corpses in ones and twos, both the ant people and the grey cannibals.

"Take a look at the dead cannibal." Ryan said as they passed another. "The arrow barely penetrated his exoskeleton, but he's dead." Ryan knelt to examine the corpse. "There's something on the arrowhead." He pulled it out. "I'll bet they're using poisoned arrows."

"And the cannibals haven't taken any of the ant people for dinner, either." Konev said. "Maybe they secrete the poisons."

"Or maybe they just taste like shit." Hayes added.

Anber's ears suddenly perked up.

"I hear something ahead of us. Gunfire, I think. Yes. Definitely gunfire. Coming from a bit to the right of dead ahead. Perhaps a thousand meters." Anber looked apologetic. "It's hard to tell how far away the gunfire is without knowing what kind of guns are firing."

Castle thought for a second.

"I've got no interest in running into more cannibals. We'll head off to the left a bit. Anber, take point along with Marine Dorca. Go slow and be quiet."

The two moved off. The column hadn't gone more than a hundred yards when they heard the sound of three suppressed gunshots ahead of them.

The column moved forward to find Anber and Dorca, standing over a half a dozen cannibal corpses.

"We walked right into them, Sergeant. We were so damned busy listening, we didn't look. Two of them were butchering the rest for their next meal. I'm sorry."

"When these two don't show up with lunch, they're going to wonder what happened. We'll be better off trying to take them down when we have the element of surprise on our side. Anber, can you guess how far away the shooting is?"

Anber swiveled his ears around. "Half kilometer? Maybe a bit more."

"Okay, we head towards the gunfire, slow and quiet. If we run into them, we attack at once before they have a chance to get organized. Move."

Luck was with them and they arrived at the edge of a large clearing that was also the battle scene. In the center of the clearing were a dozen towers built from stones held together by some sort of black mortar. The towers were arranged in a circle and between the towers was a wall made of both stones and crudely trimmed logs. The walls didn't appear to be manned, but Castle could see signs of movement in the towers. He also spotted arrow slits in the towers. He scanned the tree line, but could see no cannibals. However, Espo used his thermal imager to detect heat sources deeper in the trees.

Castle checked the towers again, then gathered his team leaders together.

"It looks like the cannibals have been trying to rush the wooden walls and set them on fire. I see what look very much like torches with some of the dead cannibals and some of the wood looks scorched. If we move back a bit and to our left, we can take cover in the trees over there and unload on the cannibals as they charge. We need to let them get as close to the towers as we can and we need to make sure all the grey bastards are in the open before we open fire. I'll start the party. No one shoots before I do. Got that?"

There was a chorus of yesses.

Castle moved his troops out and positioned them just within the trees and had them camouflage themselves as best they could. Be also posted scouts on each flank and to his rear in case there were more cannibals around. Then they waited.

It took just about an hour before the cannibals came rushing out of the trees, screaming and firing their weapons. As Castle had suspected many of them carried lit torches and others carried bundles of kindling to start the wooden walls on fire. He waited until they were massed against the walls and were suppressing any return arrow fire before he gave the order to fire. Machine guns, rifles and grenade launchers tore into the grey horde. Momentarily stunned by the surprise attack, the cannibals milled around in confusion. As had happened before, there seemed to be no central command. Some continued to attack the wall and some turned to attack Castle's command. The delay was fatal for them. In a minute all that was left of them were the dead and the dying. The dying were hurried on their way by arrows from the towers.

When the arrows stopped flying, Castle cautiously stepped out of the trees and walked partway to the nearest tower.

"Hello. My name is Richard Castle. It looks like we have common enemies. Perhaps we could…" He stopped as a single arrow flew through the air and landed a foot in front of him.

A voice called out from the towers.

"You are not placed here by our Gods. The Gods do not recognize you. You must leave. You do not belong here. Go, before the Gods become angry."

"I have no intention of having a religious disputation but…" The second arrow landed an inch from his foot.

"I got it. We're leaving. Have a nice day." Under his breath he muttered, "Assholes." He backed away.

"It seems the Gods want us to go away."

Kate shrugged.

"You can't argue with the Gods. How do the Gods feel about sex?"

"They love it." Castle said quickly.

"Then I guess I'll have to find a God to have sex with." She said walking away with a pronounced wiggle.

"That's not that I meant." Castle yelled after her.

"That's what you said," She shot back.

However, Castle was able to convince Kate that he was a God later that night. But he had to work at it.

They moved well away from the towers and then resumed their trek to the north. Again, they came out of the forest and onto a plain and continued their march.

It erupted from the tall grass and disemboweled a Krait with one swing of its sword. The lead fire team opened up with its weapons, shooting at the beast's scaly head. It stepped back and then roared forward, but now the rest of the column had added its fire to the battle. Then the beast jerked and fell over.

"Cease fire." Castle yelled. "Cease fire." He went carefully forward. He first checked the Krait and confirmed he was dead. Then he fired one shot into the beast's eye socket to make sure. The thing didn't move.

"Okay. It's dead. Jesus Christ. One damned thing after another on this fucking planet. A tyrannosaurus rex with machete? What the fuck is going on?"

"It's not a T Rex, Babe." Kate said. "It's got really long arms. And it's wearing shoes."

Castle started giggling.

"A T Rex wearing shoes. Oh, fuck. That's just too goddamned much. This planet is driving me crazy."

"Boss, before you do go crazy, you might want to look at this." Espo said. "I don't think we killed him."

"You mean he's still alive?" Castle lifted his rifle.


	18. Chapter 18

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"No, he's dead. But he's got bullets embedded in his skin. They didn't penetrate. The grenades didn't do much either. But inhale."

Castle did.

"Burned meat?"

Espo nodded.

"There's a hole burned clear through his head." Milton said. "It looks like it went through his head going upward a bit from right to left. That would put our shooter, "Milton turned, "over there someplace."

As Milton spoke, three beings materialized a thousand yards away and began walking towards Castle and his people.

Up close they looked like they might have been descended from some kind of cats. Mountain lions, perhaps, not house cats. They were humanoids, apparently covered in very short brown hair where they weren't covered by clothing. They lacked noses, but had two slits in the center of their face that served that purpose. Their ears were pointed and their eyes a light violet. Castle noticed their clothing and equipment changed to match their background.

"You seemed to be in trouble." Their leader said. "We ran into one of those an eight-day ago. They can be quite violent."

Castle nodded.

"It just killed one of my people. Thank you. If it weren't for you, we'd have lost more."

"Sniper Junglat Herftood. This is Spotter Andler Sempfod and Probationary Sniper Danglor Perrizon."

"I'm Staff Sergeant Rick Castle. I'm in charge of this group."

The sniper's brow furrowed.

"What sort of a job title is a staff sergeant?"

"It's not a job title, it's a rank."

"A rank?"

Castle tried to explain the concept of a rank to someone who had no familiarity with the concept. Finally, Milton spoke.

"They're kind of like the Chinese Communists. For a long time they had only two ranks, fighter and leader. People were referred to by their jobs. Now they have ranks, but you're more likely to be called Comrade Battalion Commander, or Comrade Machine Gunner or Comrade Deputy Assistant Financial Accountant. You'd be Comrade Platoon Commander."

Herftood smiled.

"Exactly. He's Comrade Platoon Commander."

Castle frowned.

"I'm not sure…"

"I am." Kate said with a smile. "I think Comrade Platoon Commander Castle is a wonderful title."

And, from that day on, in spite of his complaints, he was Comrade Platoon Commander Castle.

"I think I should explain who we are and where we came from." Castle said.

He explained where each of his sub-units was from, a bit about their planet's past and what equipment they had.

Sniper Herftood was next. His planet's name, which translated as Home, had undergone a nuclear war four centuries before. Half the population of the planet died on the first day of the war and billions more died from radiation, a nuclear winter, and the collapse of society. His country, Eupatoria, was a small but relatively advanced country located on the equator. They lost half of their original ten million people, but managed to maintain much of their technological base and society. Indeed, their world had been more technologically advanced than Earth. Eventually, they had increased their population to pre-war levels and had recovered much, but not all of their lost technology.

"My weapon is an X-ray laser rifle. "Herftood said. "Except for a slight hum when it's fired, it's soundless and not visible to the naked eye, but you can see it if you have a thermal imaging sight." He tapped the sight of his rifle. "It's lethal out to about four thousand meters, but after that, its power falls off dramatically. At five thousand meters, the target would get a bit of a sunburn."

"Spotter Sempfod has a more powerful thermal imager and he controls our mini-drones. He's armed with a grenade launcher/submachine gun. The upper barrel fires a 23 mm grenade and the lower fires a 7.8 mm round. Unlike your weapons, his is a rail gun. The barrel is lined with electromagnets which come on in succession and propel the grenade or bullet down the barrel."

"Probationary Sniper Perrizon carries our extra gear and carries a fully automatic rail gun that fires a heavier 7.8 mm slug. He provides our close in protection and learns his trade."

"We're not an army in the same manner as you appear to be. Oh, we have armored vehicles, combat aircraft, warships and such, but we are more a constabulary. We are a tiny island of civilization in a great sea of barbarism. When our world went to hell, for most the only way to survive to grab whatever you could to survive and the Devil take the hindmost. Most still think that way. In fact, we were at a food production facility that had been raided by barbarians from beyond our lands. And then we were here, much to our surprise.'

"We'd like you to join us, Sniper Herftood. You'd be a great addition to our group."

"Excellent idea. Joining a much larger, well-armed group will suit us. I am yours to command, Comrade Platoon Commander Castle."

Castle managed to smile.

After marching until mid-afternoon, they found a pile of their supplies.

Castle examined them.

"There's enough food and water here for two days. Plus the extra we have, we can take a little break here. I think today and tomorrow. The forest extends out into the prairie just a bit. We can stop in the trees where there's cover."

They picked up the supplies and marched the hundred yards to the trees. Castle set out sentries, but everyone relaxed. Boots were taken off, Marine Dorca got out a comb and scissors and offered haircuts to one and all, and many looked in their rucksacks for treats they'd been saving for a special occasion. On this planet, a day off was a special occasion.

Anber suddenly shot to his feet, his ears twisting around to the south.

"I hear engines. Very faint, but coming this way."

"Everybody get deeper into the trees, and get behind something."

As they did, both Kate and Herftood noticed Castle was staying where he was.

"Aren't you coming, Babe?"

"I want to see what's coming. Maybe they're friendly. We could use another vehicle. The little quad-cycle isn't much of a ride."

"I'm with you. Always."

"I have better optics than you, Comrade Platoon Commander Castle. I should stay as well." Herftood said.

Castle would have argued with both of them, but he was sure there was no time. All three took cover behind the largest trees they could find.

"Oh, shit. It's one of the tanks we saw before." After a second he added. "Crap. It's four of the tanks." He turned to Herftood. "If we have to fight, can your weapon penetrate one of those?"

The sniper shook his head. "Based on my experience with our armored vehicles back on Home, I'd say no."

The three watched as the four tanks drove across the prairie and stopped not a hundred yards away. Their turrets rotated, as if checking out the area, then two tanks moved, ending up nose to nose. The other two tanks took up positions on either side of their two companions. One cannon was pointed right at them. A section of one of the tank's facing each other's glacis plate opened. A crane of some sort rose up from the front of the other tank and removed something.

"What was that?" Castle whispered.

"Perhaps it's a mommy tank and a daddy tank. That's their little baby tank." Kate whispered back.

"is she serious, Comrade Platoon Commander?" Herftood asked.

"I don't think so, but on this planet, you can never tell."

As they watched they could hear the sounds of some sort a machinery. Then, the glacis plate opened and the part, whatever it was, was put back in.

"Just some field repairs." Castle whispered.

The tanks moved off in a line and were soon out of sight. Castle waited an hour before calling an all clear. They relaxed as much as they could for that day and the next, but everyone was on edge.

Two days later, Castle checked his wristwatch, then looked up at the sky.

"It's hard to tell exactly, but the local day seems to be about 24 hours long. If so, this is local noon and the sun is directly overhead. I'd say we're on the planet's equator."

Van Ott swept sweat from his forehead.

"It's sure as hell warm enough for me."

"Not for someone else." Anber said. "There's a fire over by the tree line a bit ahead. Should we check it out, Comrade Platoon Commander?"

"It could be cannibals cooking dinner." Espo said.

"Or the crews of the tanks we saw making coffee over a fire." Kate added.

"Or it could be someone who could help us, Comrade Sniper, Comrade Radiowoman, and Comrade Big Ears."

Anber looked very offended.

"It's not my fault you have those tiny little ears that make you nearly deaf."

"We'll send a patrol to check them out, very carefully."

"Comrade Platoon Commander Castle, we have very small drones that we can send. They'll be far less noticeable than sending people."

Castle nodded.

"Send 'em, Comrade Sniper."

The drones sent back a very clear hologram of the fire and those around it.

"Those four are damned near in the fire." Castle said.

Spotter Sempfod moved something and the hologram changed.

"This is very odd. Their body temperatures are far above what we would call normal. Their blood should be just about boiling."

"But look at how they're dressed." Castle said. "They've got on greatcoats and it looks like two of them have scarves wrapped around their heads."

"I don't see any signs of life." Sempfod said, doing something with the drone control. "I think they're dead."

"Let's go see." Castle said with a sigh.

The four aliens were dead. And wearing every scrap of clothing they had.

"Their bodies are quite hot. "Ryan said. "More than you'd expect from the clothing and the fire. I think they came from a really, really hot planet. This place is like the South Pole to them. I think they froze to death."

"Froze? Are you sure?"

"No. I'm not sure about most of what happens on this planet."

Castle shook his head sadly.

"Could this place get more fucked up?"

"What should we do with them?" Ryan asked.

"They have what looks like old and badly maintained bolt action rifles. I don't think we need to keep any of their stuff. As for the bodies, we'll take them into the trees a ways and bury them. I never asked, but is there anyone here that's some sort of religious official?"

No one answered.

"Okay, get out your E tools while Comrade Platoon Commander AKA Comrade Father Castle tries to think of something nice to say. Get to it."

Castle got a shock the next day when they had stopped for lunch. A body suddenly appeared right beside him and in seconds others appeared as well.

"Shit! These are people arriving on this planet just like we did. And they have weapons. When they wake up, they might start shooting. Everyone grab one. Don't hurt them and try to explain that were friendly."

Castle grabbed the nearest one, but suddenly pulled his hand back.

"Did he hurt you, Babe?" Kate asked, joining him.

"No, "he" has boobs. Help me turn her over."

Turned over, they saw the woman's eyes were open, but she looked disoriented. Kate gently pulled her weapons away from her.

"Hi. We're friends. Please don't freak out. We can sort of explain what happened to you and we can help you. Okay?"

The woman managed to shake her head. Then she tried to sit up, but fell back down.

"By the Great God. I feel like shit. I hurt all over."

"I know. I felt the same way when I got here."

"Is this the Great Beyond? Am I dead?'

Castle shook his head.

"No, but getting killed is really easy around here."

In two or three minutes every one of the newcomers was awake and the pain had faded away to almost nothing.

One man stood up.

"I'm Color Sergeant Breede. Who's in command here?"


	19. Chapter 19

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

Castle walked over to him.

"That would be me, Staff Sergeant Richard Castle, US Army, Third Ranger Battalion."

"Never heard of them."

"Then let me tell you what's happened since I arrived here."

Castle again explained what had happened ever since he'd come to on a grassy hillside and seen an armored man chasing a blonde.

When he was done, Breede shook his head.

"You'll excuse me if I find this very hard to believe."

"Okay, it's not that easy to grasp all at once. But look at some of the people here. I assume you're human. Do you have any non-humans on your world? And look in the sky. How many moons of what color orbit your planet?"

Breede looked around and then shrugged.

"Our enemies might be able to make these things appear to be true."

"Okay. I've told you about us. How about you tell us about you. And remember, if we really are your enemies and this is some kind of giant scam, we know all about you anyway, so you have no secrets to try to conceal from us."

Breede's planet was called Home, of all things, and his country was Askaphasia. Askaphasia was a continent sized nation that rather reminded Castle of Russia back on Earth, if Russia had sprawled across the temperate zone, rather than being shoved up against the Arctic. Their population was about one hundred million. Askaphasia was more technologically advanced than any other nation, in fact, Castle having looked over their equipment thought they were about on par with the US, at least as far as infantry weapons went. They had assault rifles, two medium machine guns, two grenade launchers that looked to be a combo of an assault rifle and a two shot, double barreled grenade launcher, and a sniper rifle. They each had an individual radio, what looked like night vision goggles, protective vests and helmets. And there were fourteen of them.

No other nation, or any combination could defeat Askaphasia, but their enemies had recently discovered what on Earth was called hybrid, or asymmetric warfare. Askaphasia and its interests weren't attacked by any nation, but by non-state actors: Terrorist groups, criminal gangs, propagandists and any other group that would attack Askaphasia, its people or interests. Askaphasia was having trouble fighting back without starting a war with the whole rest of the planet, which included nations that were friendly to Askaphasia, but had criminals.

"In the old days, "Breede went on, "our colors were placed at the center of a regiment going into combat. If you could see the regiment's flags advancing, you knew things were going well. If they were falling back, you knew there was a problem. If the flags had fallen, you knew disaster faced you. Consequently, the company that guarded the colors was composed of the best soldiers in the regiment. We no longer carry flags into combat, but each regiment and division have a color company of the best soldiers. My squad is from the color company of the White Flower Division."

"The squad consists of two bricks, so called since they are the building blocks for all higher units. A brick is five men: A medium machine gunner and rifleman; a grenadier and a rifleman and brick leader. I lead the squad and with me is a radioman, a medic and a sniper. We have eight men and six women with us."

Breede went on to describe their weapons and equipment which confirmed Castle's notion that they were roughly equivalent to US equipment.

"Our company had been helicoptered into a lawless area of another country that was the base for criminals who transported drugs, women, weapons and anything else of value that is illegal. And then we found ourselves here. Wherever here actually is."

Sniper Herftood spoke.

"Color Sergeant Breede is about to find out where here is. We have drones out. There are four of the white death headed our way."

"How far away?" Castle asked.

"A bit over four thousand meters, Comrade Platoon Commander. But, they're headed for a gully about three hundred meters in front of them. We'll lose sight of them until they're about there." Herftood pointed to a point about a kilometer away.

"Can you try shooting at their eyes? If we can blind them, we'll have a better chance."

Herftood's sniper team got busy but did no apparent damage before the white death disappeared into the gully.

Breede smirked.

"It seems your so-called x-ray laser rifle hasn't had much of an effect. Don't worry. As soon as they're in range again, my squad will take care of them."

Herftood warned everyone when the white death was about to emerge from the gully. As soon as the emerged, the mortar and the heavy machine guns opened up. As well as all of the snipers. Espo and Herftood aimed for their eyes as they knew how difficult they were to kill. The Askaphasian sniper aimed for the center of mass and had no apparent effect.

At eight hundred meters, everyone opened fire. In spite of the enormous volume of fire, it seemed to have no effect.

Castle noticed some of the Askaphasian soldiers checking their weapons for some kind of malfunction.

"Your weapons are working! They're really just this hard to kill. Keep shooting."

Finally, one of the white death put his hands over his eyes and roared. He staggered around and even tripped. He advanced very slowly and while he kept shooting, he was aiming high. The others concentrated on blinding the remaining three. First one, then a second and finally a third were blinded. While they could hear where their tormentors' fire was coming from and could even feel the directions the shots were coming from, their return fire was poorly aimed and eventually they were all killed. Castle's troops had suffered three wounded, none seriously.

Breede approached Castle.

"Comrade Platoon Commander Castle. My apologies for doubting you. I will follow you to the death as will all of my squad."

The squad also announced they would follow Castle to the death.

"Okay, but now we have to go out and make damned sure they're dead and that they stay that way."

When they came back, Castle called Breede over.

"I notice that you and your people are very similar. You're all about six feet, one inch, blond haired and blue eyed, long legged, narrow hipped and broad shouldered. That can't be a coincidence. We're you selected for those traits for the Color Company?"

Breede laughed and shook his head. "We are all of the warrior caste of our people. We only marry within our caste and for many centuries we married someone from a nearby village. We kept excellent genealogical records so we didn't get inbred, but over the years, we started to get a particular look about us. That's not true in your societies, I see."

"Not at all."

For two days and two nights, they saw no one. As they settled down for the night of the second day, a voice called to them.

"Hello? May I come in?"

Everyone grabbed their weapons and took what cover there was. When Castle was sure everyone was prepared, he replied.

"Sure, come on in."

The speaker was a slender, red haired, teen age girl wearing a long blue gown that covered her from her neck to her ankles.

"Who are you?" Castle asked.

"I'm a construct."

Castle frowned.

"And what is a construct?"

"I was created using human DNA to help you, much like Mick Patrick was."

"The bartender? What happened to him?"

The girl shrugged. "He was deconstructed."

"You mean he's dead?"

She frowned. "I suppose that's what it means."

"So how are you to help us?"

"By explaining why you're here and what's to happen next."

"We could use that information. The day we got here would have been better, but, better late than never."

The girl continued.

"You are part of the Great Game, pitting people from different worlds against each other…."

Castle exploded.

"You brought us to this fucking planet so we could kill each other? What kind of sick, twisted bastards are you?"

"Sergeant Castle, I did not say _we_ brought you here, I said you were brought here. It would be easier for all if us if you let me tell you what happened and _then_ you can speak."

"Okay, okay, keep talking."

"The Great Game, so called, was begun some three centuries ago. The race that began it is rather long lived. A few of the younger original proprietors are still alive, but most of the current owners are second generation. They discovered that humans, along with other races, had been scattered about this part of the galaxy. We do not know how or why these people were brought from their home worlds, but they were, some over a hundred thousand years ago and some only a few thousand years ago. They were, mostly, quite warlike species. They found an uninhabited planet and began the Great Game."

"For the most part, the "players", as you are called, are reasonably technologically advanced and the teams are usually from ten to twenty people. Bets are taken on the outcome of each team on many, many planets. To make the betting more interesting, there have been changes in the teams. Sometimes large numbers of less technologically advanced groups are brought here. You saw a large unit armed with muzzle loading muskets fight a group armed only with edged weapons, did you not?"

Castle nodded.

"And, occasionally, more technologically advanced teams, such as Sniper Herftood and his team are brought in. There are also other exceptions. Do you recall seeing a dead woman, very humanoid, when you first ran into the grey cannibals?"

Castle nodded again.

''She, and her sister, who was mostly consumed by the time you saw them, were from a clan of assassins. They use their great beauty and sexual skills to get close to their target and kill him, or her. However, they were not beautiful to the grey cannibals, they were just food."

"You found a motor vehicle from Earth recently, am I correct?"

"Yes. From California."

"The vehicle was driven by an attractive young human lady. The betting was on how long she would last on this planet. Most bets were measured in hours, although a few thought she might last for a few days. She was captured by an Earth street gang and used as a sex slave for ten months before she tried to escape and was beaten to death. The Game made a great deal of money from her."

"There are any number of possible side bets. Who of a particular group will be the next to die, whether a group armed with, say, bolt action rifles will be able to scavenge better weapons, whose corpse will be eaten last if captured by the grey cannibals, and so on."

"When you were brought here, you were attacked almost at once. You, Sergeant Castle, saw a being chasing after Janice Norwood, and killed him. Another being attacked Specialist Lloyd. Once your team was together you ran into dangerous plants, animals and intelligent races. This was to mentally prepare you to shoot first and ask question later. There are only two groups who in every instance will band together with their fellows. Those are the grey cannibals and the centaurs."

"How the hell do the centaurs survive? The only weapon they have is a fucking crossbow." Esposito demanded.

The girl glared at him for interrupting, but decided to answer his question.

"They are better armed than you could imagine. They are masters of biological and chemical warfare. If they wanted to kill you, you'd be dead before you even knew you were in danger."

"They don't talk much." Espo said.

"They seem to communicate by some form of telepathy. Apparently, fairly short ranged."


	20. Chapter 20

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"To get back to my explanation, there are two other life forms you should know about. What you call the white death are also constructs. Their skin is made of something like your protective vests, but more advanced and very flexible. As you have found, their main weakness is their eyes, their ears, mouth, nose and anus. All parts of the body that have to be uncovered to function."

"The other race, if I may use that term, are the tanks you have seen. Most recently you've seen four of them. They were built by a race that eventually succeeded in exterminating themselves with their excellent weapons. They left behind factories that turned out crewless tanks, commanded by an artificial intelligence. The lack of a crew allows them to be more heavily armed and armored than a similar tank from any of your worlds. They have a 130-millimeter main gun, a coaxial 23 mm cannon, a coaxial 7.8 mm machine gun, and two 15 mm machine guns mounted on top of the turret. There is also a 62 mm mortar mounted behind the turret. However, they are programmed to fight only other tanks unless they are attacked. Then they will defend themselves even if they're just attacked with arrows. The tank that you saw get destroyed was from another world and crewed by something resembling Earth's army ants. Not terribly bright or dangerous individually, but put fifty in a tank and they seem to do quite well."

"Now as to who we are. We oppose the Great Game, but they are a very powerful and wealthy organization that is entrenched on hundreds of planets. We, the Anti Great Game Organization, are not wealthy or powerful, although we exist on many of the same planets of the Game. We have managed to infiltrate people into the lower and middle levels of the Game. We had hoped to find evidence that the Game was cheating so as to maximize their profits, but in this they appear to be quite honest."

"So, we had another idea. What if we could cheat? That is, choose groups that were being brought here that would ally themselves with each other and so be able to fight off other groups and bet heavily on them. We chose the teams you have with you as well as four more. Regrettably, two of the teams were wiped out and the other two, in spite of our best efforts, headed away from you. But, by covertly betting on you to survive, we have made a substantial amount of money. Not as much as the Game has made from this whole planet, but sufficient to expand our operations substantially."

"What do we get out of all of this?" Castle demanded.

"You're still alive. While you were being transferred here, we placed subconscious commands in your minds that would allow you to ally yourself with other groups as you have done. This was done at the same time as we enabled you to understand each other, so there was little or no suspicious activity. The Game worries about outside gamblers trying to cheat, not people within their organization. In addition, we can return you to your homes at the end of the season. Your combat actions are monitored by microscopic cameras, but we can keep them away when necessary, such as now. At the end of the season, you'll camp by a river. The cameras will be moved elsewhere. You'll be surreptitiously removed and then there'll be a flood. As far as the Game knows, you all died in a terrible accident."

"Aren't you worried that the Game will get curious as to why we keep winning and investigate?"

The girl shrugged.

"In three centuries there have been tens of millions of combats on this world. Million to one shots do occur. Successions of million to one shots have occurred. And if they ask for an investigation, it'll be our people who investigate."

"Great. So, when do we get out of here?"

"I'm afraid you have one more battle to fight before the end of the season."

"How bad is it?"

"There's a force of several thousand grey cannibals headed your way. And they're very hungry. They haven't eaten in a long while."

"Jesus Fucking Christ! Thousands of the bastards? You expect us to beat them?"

The girl nodded.

"There's a rather steep hill just to the east. You have entrenching tools and machetes with you and we have provided more tools for you. There is a large stand of trees resembling the bamboo of Earth not fifty feet away. You can dig in on the hill and build bunkers. Appearing just behind me are various types of anti-personnel mines. We've changed your records to show that you brought all of this with you, or found them here. You have five days to dig in starting tomorrow and on the sixth day, the grey cannibals will come."

"You say you're a human?"

"Yes. I was constructed from human DNA some two months ago and given all of the information I'd need while growing. We used the same techniques that were used at the Jolly Grenadier to heal your wounded to grow me, and those used to allow you to understand each other's languages."

"So, you're as human as I am?"

"Yes. I explained that. If we were to have sex, we could have a fully functioning offspring."

"Like hell." Kate muttered.

"And you're going to be deconstructed, that is die, when this I over? Doesn't that bother you?"

She shrugged.

"I've never given it much thought."

"I've spent a hell of a long time trying to keep humans alive, and others, and I'm not letting you die. Tell your people you're coming with us. Even back to Earth with us. Tell them."

She closed her eyes for a long minute.

"That is acceptable."

"You'll need cammies, equipment and weapons like we have. Do you know how to shoot?"

"Yes. That was part of my training. And my equipment has also been delivered behind me. I must change into my new clothing."

With that, she grabbed the hem of her gown and began pulling it over her head, revealing that she was a natural redhead.

"Stop!" Castle yelled. "Kate, Janice, Anna, take her behind a tree or something and get her changed."

When the four women came back, the girl was dressed and equipped as they were.

"By the way, what's your name?"

"I don't have one. There was never any need before this."

Castle rolled his eyes.

"You know, she looks like that chick in the zombie movies." Milton said.

"_Resident Evil_? The woman in that wasn't a redhead."

"I didn't say they were identical. They just kind of look alike. We should call her Alice."

"Okay, your name is now Alice."

"She needs a family name." Anna said.

"She doesn't _have_ a family." Castle complained.

"She can be Alice Castle. Alice Castle, welcome to the family of Comrade Platoon Leader Richard Castle." Kate said with a smile.

Castle slowly shook his head.

"Now unless we need to decide who her aunt and uncles are, we need to get to sleep. We have a lot of work ahead of us. And then we have combat."

Castle had everyone up at dawn cutting bamboo while he looked over the hill to the east. He decided it would make a fine defensive position, if they could get it fortified in time.

Four days later, they were mostly done. They had dug a triangular fortification studded with bunkers made from the thickest bamboo and covered with dirt. The bunkers could easily hold a fireteam. Between the bunkers zig zagged trenches, built so that any cannibals who entered them couldn't fire straight down the whole trench line. In the center of the strongpoint was Castle's command bunker from which he'd control the defense with Kate Beckett and Alice. Castle was convinced neither of the redhead's loyalties nor her abilities as a soldier and felt it was best to have her where he could keep an eye on her. Also, in the center was a mortar pit and two bunkers for their heavy machine guns, arranged so they could fire in any direction. Next to the command bunker was the medical bunker, holding Ryan, Konev and Color Sergeant Breede's medic, a woman called Tal. These bunkers were connected to the rest by more zig zagging communications trenches. Surrounding the strongpoint were punji stakes which Castle had had smeared with shit.

"I don't know if our various shits will harm them and if it does it'll be too late to help us, one way or the other, but I want as many of the bastards to die as possible." He'd said grimly.

The evening of the fourth day, Castle gathered his troops around him.

"This first part is mainly for Color Sergeant Breede and his people as they have never fought the grey cannibals before. They're suicidally brave and attack in what I'd call human wave attacks if they were human. On the down side they're armed with rather crudely made rifles and shotguns and seem to have no command and control structure. We came across a group attacking a fortification held by people who looked like large insects, ants, to humans. When they attacked the ant people, we attacked them from the rear. Their attack became chaotic, some continued their initial attack and some turned to attack us and some ran."

Castle pointed to the north.

"Alice has advised us they're coming at us from the north. They also don't have much in the way of tactical abilities. As soon as they see us, they'll attack with no thought of trying to flank us or scout out our weak points. I've arranged our strongpoint so that one angle of the triangle points north. That'll let two sides of the triangle fire at them. I've also put most of the mines and the punji stakes on the north side."

"If you look further out, you'll see a series of bamboo stakes driven into the ground. The ones with white surgical tape at the top are a thousand meters out. When the cannibals get there, our mortar and heavy machine guns can fire. The stakes with the tape in the middle are eight hundred meters out. That's when the light and medium machine guns and rifles can open fire. The last stakes are six hundred meters out and our grenadiers can start shooting when they reach there."

Castle pointed to Sniper Herftood.

"Of course, he'll start shooting as soon as he sees something. In addition, he has his drones in the air, so we'll get advanced warning when the enemy shows up."

"We're dug in pretty good, but we can always do better. We'll knock off for the day and tomorrow we'll work on reinforcing the bunkers and making more punji stakes. If there are no questions, we'll eat and get some sleep."

They did eat and they did eventually sleep, but many couples, including Rick and Kate made love, fearing, in the back of their minds, that they might never get another chance.

On the fifth day they worked on improving their defenses. That night, Castle ordered that the sentries be doubled and sat with Probationary Sniper Perrizon who sent recon drones out hourly, but found nothing. In between, Castle napped.

They were all up as dawn broke. Drones were sent out, but again found nothing.

"Maybe the cannibals got distracted by some dead bodies and decided to eat them instead of us." Castle said hopefully.

"Maybe, but let's have some coffee, Babe. That's something else we might not ever experience again."

"I'll be with you always, Kate."

"I know. I just wish I knew how long always is on this planet."

They had their coffee and breakfast when Herftood called to Castle.

"The drones have spotted them. They're headed straight for us, about ten kilometers out."

Castle personally went to each and every bunker to make sure that everyone had enough ammo, that there were spare weapons in case one was damaged, that they had food, medicine and water. He made sure everyone knew where the medical bunker was. In fact, he may have gone a bit too far.


	21. Chapter 21

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

"Another thing, "He said to Van Ott's fire team, "keep your water handy for your weapons. They'll heat up in a long firefight and you'll need to cool them down. You should…"

"Sarge," Van Ott interrupted, "you know we _have_ done this shit before. We know what we're doing."

Castle smiled.

"Sorry. I just want all of us to survive this."

"Yeah, us too." Van Ott said with a smile.

"Okay, I'm out of here. Good luck."

He got back to his command bunker just as the first of the cannibals came over the hill to the north. They surged over the hill, looking like a dirty, grey wave headed for Castle's command.

"Shit. There are a lot of them." He said, looking through his binoculars.

"You were right, though. They're headed straight for us." Kate said.

"Yeah. Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle."

He had never seen several thousand enemies coming straight for him, but his mind automatically processed some important facts. Yes, they were headed straight for them. And they were too bunched up. They'd take far too any casualties attacking like that. And they seemed to have little or no organization. Small groups within the horde moved back and forth, blocking others and creating traffic jams that slowed everyone down.

He was distracted by the sharp crack of their mortar firing, followed quickly by their heavy machine guns. He watched as the first waves of cannibals went down under the machine gin fire. Seconds later, he saw the eruption of the first mortar shell and saw dirt and body parts thrown into the sky. But his enemy didn't even seem to notice, but kept coming grimly on.

When they hit the stakes marking eight hundred meters, the remainder of the rifles, assault rifles and light and medium machine guns opened up. Castle could see cannibals going down in droves now, but still they came.

He heard firing from outside the bunker. A quick look around saw that Kate was still kneeling beside him, with her radio on her back.

"It's Alice. She went outside to shoot."

He stuck his head outside to see the redhead calmly shooting at the advancing enemies.

"What do you think you're doing?" He demanded.

"I'm trying to stay alive. I've decided I like it. I never thought about it before, but being alive is fun. And when we're done here, I want to try sex. That sounds great."

"You're too young for sex." Castle screamed.

"I am not!" She dropped her empty magazine and pushed a new one into her assault rifle, then resumed firing.

"You're only two months old. That's way too young for sex."

"I am not!" She yelled back.

"You're going to have to wait until you're thirty."

"Another twenty-eight months?" Alice screamed.

"No! Until you're thirty years old."

"Fuck you!"

"Castle, you're supposed to be in the command bunker commanding." Kate yelled at him over the sound of the gunfire.

Castle went back inside just as the grenade launchers opened up. At first, he thought that the cannibals were slowing down, then he realized that they were being killed almost as fast as they were advancing.

Then they hit the minefield. Directional claymore mines tore great gaps in the horde. Simple explosive mines went off when stepped on and threw bodies and body parts into the air. They also had what Castle called bouncing Betty mines. When stepped on, a small charge shot the body of the mine into the air where it exploded about a meter off the ground, scattering shrapnel in all directions.

When the enemy finally reached the first row of punji stakes, their command and control, such as it was, began to unravel. Different groups began to mill around, some starting to go left, others right, others going forward and others going backwards. The result was chaos.

Castle heard more gunfire coming from behind him. At first afraid that cannibals had snuck up behind them, he found that the troops on the far side of the strongpoint were firing into the leaderless mass of grey cannibals. Castle quickly radioed them to keep an eye on their own sector, but to keep firing and be very careful not to shoot into the other bunkers.

Quickly the chaos became a panicked retreat. Castle kept his troops busy firing into the retreating mass so that none of them would consider re-attacking.

He suddenly found Kate in his arms, kissing him.

"We did it. We beat them. They're gone. Now we can all go home."

"Can I have sex now?" Alice said from the entrance to the bunker.

"No!" Castle insisted. "I told you. You're only two months old. You'll have to wait until you're thirty years old."

"I'm going to find a guy." She grumped.

"Comrade Platoon Leader Castle." Herftood called over the radio.

"What is it, Herftood?"

"We have a problem."

"What kind of a problem?"

"There's another group of grey cannibals moving towards us."

"How many?"

"If the last group was two thousand, I'd put this one at about six thousand."

"Shit." Castle leaned back against the wall of the bunker. "How long until they get here?"

"Perhaps two hours. And we have an audience to the west of us."

Castle's eyes went to the vision slit in the bunker that faced west. There, hull down on a hill, several kilometers away, were the four tanks they'd seen previously. Or ones just like them.

He grabbed the radio's mic.

"Ryan, what about the wounded? Any of them able to fight? We have six thousand more cannibals headed ours."

There was a brief pause.

"I've got five wounded here. Hayes had her jaw smashed, but I've sedated her. She won't be in any shape to fight for hours. One of the Kraits has a head wound. He'll be lucky to survive. One of the Morean Marines has a chest wound. She'll bleed to death if…"

"Dammit! Is there anyone who can fight."

"Amber had one ear shot off. Give me a second to sew him up and he'll be ready, but he's lost some blood and…"

"Just sew me up, Ryan." Anber yelled. "I can fight with one ear. By God's three balls, I can fight with no ears. Now get to it."

"Castle, "Ryan said, "I'll send Anna and Tal to one of the bunkers. As soon as I get through here, I'll go myself. I don't think we have much of a chance now." Ryan paused for a moment. "It's been good knowing you, Castle. And you've done a good job here."

Castle took a deep breath.

"I'm glad to have known you too, Kevin. You've done well. Everyone here has. I'm sorry it has to end this way. Castle out."

"Is it that bad, Babe?" Kate asked.

He nodded.

"Two thousand of them got all the way to our punji stakes. And now most of our mines are gone." He put his arms around her and held her close. "You're a remarkable woman, Kate Beckett. I wish we had more time, because I love you."

She kissed him softly, then pulled away.

"You're an amazing man, Rick. I love you too."

Castle took the radio again.

"This is Castle. You've all heard what's coming our way. I don't have to tell you that this is going to be the end for us. There are just to fucking many of the fuckers. I just wanted to tell you that this has been the best command of my life. I hope we all meet somewhere better than this. Castle out."

The radio was jammed for a few minutes with Castle's troops saying goodbye to him and thanking him for all he'd done.

Two hours later, Castle saw the first of the horde of cannibals come over the crest of the far hill and momentarily stop. Then they headed straight for them. The horde seemed to go on forever.

"The group s so big that it looks like they'll be able to attack us frontally and swing around both flanks. Heavy weapons, they'll be in range in about another minute. When they hit the far stakes, give 'em hell."

In seconds, Castle heard the sharp crack of the mortar and then the rattle of the machine guns. Suddenly, he thought of something and grabbed the mic from Kate.

"This is Castle. Whatever you do, don't fire anywhere near those tanks. They won't attack us if we don't attack first, they'll just sit there and have a good machine laugh at us getting killed. I want to take as many of those grey bastards with us as we can."

He looked out of the bunker's vision slit with his binoculars. He could see the dirty brown explosions of the mortar shells as they exploded and saw some of the enemy fall to the heavy machine guns. When the horde reached eight hundred meters, everything but the grenadiers opened fire. He could see more of them falling, but it clearly wasn't enough. The dirty grey horde rolled on, clearly unstoppable.

"Castle, what did you say about not shooting at the tanks?"

"Crap! Did someone shoot at them?"

Kate nodded and then smiled.

"Take a look at who's attacking them."

Castle looked to the west. He could see several thousand cannibals peeling off from the main horde and heading for the tanks, shooting as they went. The tanks reacted at once, opening fire with their weapons, the explosions from their main guns making the mortar shell explosions look like toys. Their lighter cannons and machine guns chopped through the dense mass of cannibals. As the two sides closed the tanks began firing some kind of anti-personnel rounds. Castle thought they were either cannister rounds or what the US Army called beehive rounds which fired thousands of steel darts with each shot.

Even with their comrades being torn apart around them, the cannibals surged like a wave over the tanks, looking for some way to get to the crews they thought must be inside. The tanks used their machine guns to sweep them off of each other.

In minutes, the discipline of the horde was beginning to unravel. They began running from the tanks and the tanks began chasing after them.

"Cease fire. Cease fire!" Castle screamed into the radio. "The last thing we want now is to get the tanks mad at us."

Castle, Kate and Alice stepped out of the bunker. The cannibals were in full retreat with the tanks in hot pursuit, firing their weapons and crushing slow and unlucky cannibals beneath their treads.

Castle threw his arms around Kate and kissed her solidly.

"They're gone. The tanks are chasing them and we won't see them again. And we're going home."

Then all went dark.

He hurt all over when he woke up, but it wasn't as bad as the first time. He managed to open his eyes on the second try, and found himself looking at a beautiful blue sky with several puffy white clouds. Managing to look to both sides, he could see pine trees and then he heard a bird singing.

_I've heard that before._ He thought. _I'm pretty sure it was in North Carolina. Georgia maybe?_

He managed to move his head to the right and saw Kate Beckett lying peacefully beside him. The rise and fall of her chest said she was alive. A flash of red hair just beyond her told him that Alice had made it as well. He groaned as he levered himself up on one elbow. Then he groaned again.

_This can't be happening._

Next to Alice was a Krait, lying on his back with a machine gun across his chest.

He pushed himself up and looked around. They were all here. His whole group was scattered around the small glen in the forest.

"At least I won't have any trouble convincing the Army that I didn't just go AWOL." He said.

He ran his hand over Kate's face.

"Wake up, Kate. Wake up."

Kate smiled, but didn't open her eyes.

"Come back to bed, lover." She mumbled, reaching for him.

"Kate….Wake up."


	22. Chapter 22

Deadly Planet

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, or a planet. Rating: K+ for rough language. Time: The near future and very AU.

He heard a noise behind him and grabbed for his rifle as he turned around. It was Rifleman Than and Anber. He noticed Anber now had both ears. He managed to get to his feet, but was still a little unsteady.

"You okay?"

Than nodded.

"We're fine."

Anber waved his ears.

"I got a sniper rifle. One of Breede's people got hit in the throat. I was just grabbing his stuff when we…Well, when whatever happened that got us here. Than said he'll teach me to be a sniper."

"We also have some FNGs." Than said, pointing to two groups in unfamiliar uniforms and one very big…something.

"Babe? What happened?" Kate stood up, took a step forward, then leaned against him heavily.

"We're back on Earth, I think. But, we have some extra people now."

"Comrade Platoon Commander Castle, it looks like they're starting to wake up. They're all armed, so we should go over and let them know we're friendlies." Than said.

As they approached the first group, Castle recognized the camo pattern. It was MARPAT. One group of newcomers were Marines. Castle found one with sergeant's stripes on his collar and shook him.

"Who the fuck are you?" The man asked blearily.

"Richard Castle. I command this unit." He waved vaguely behind him where his troops were slowly getting up.

"Richard Fucking Castle? So we made it?"

"Made it where?"

"Some fucking old dude came to us. Looked like fucking Gandalf or something. Said he was going to send us to you. That we'd be a lot better off. You had more troops and weapons. Are we still on this shithole planet?"

"We're on Earth, I'm pretty sure. These are pine trees and I've seen sparrows. Who are you?"

"Sergeant Dominic LaPierre, First Raider Battalion, USMC. This is about half the group we started out with. I've got, "He looked around, "eight. Nine of my people are dead."

"Okay, relax. We'll get organized and get going to…somewhere pretty quick."

He turned to the second group.

"You are?"

"Sar'nt Sam Grant. 3 SCOTS, the Black Watch. We wiz on yon shithole planet fer jist one month an' wiz lucky. We run inta nae but them wi' shitty weapons an' less discipline an' training. I have fifteen men, wi' me included. Two is wounded. We wuz told by some auld witchy bitch, right outta Macbeth, we wuz goin' to Richard Castle, an' here we air."

"Sar'nt." Said a man with his arm in a sling. "I don't think my arm's broken." He pulled his arm from the sling and waved it around.

"Davey, what about you?"

A man pulled a bandage off the head of another man.

"Nae a scratch or a bluidy bruise, Sar'nt. T'is a miracle."

"Not a miracle. These things happen around here." Castle said.

Castle turned to face the other being that had arrived. As Castle turned, he got up, and up and up. Castle thought he looked vaguely like a bear, a big black bear standing eight feet tall, but one wearing desert camo and carrying a very big rifle. Castle guessed the bore was about the size of their 40 mm grenade launchers.

"Richard Castle?" The big fellow boomed. "Theokrates Kanakredes, Lord of the Great Green Mountains. I was told by a young lady of my race that I would be coming to you." He laughed. "I suppose I erred in introducing myself as the Lord of the Great Green Mountains. I've been gone from the mountains for two months now. I'm sure my younger brother is now the Lord. So, I come to you as a landless wanderer, a knight errant, so to speak." He pulled a basket hilted sword from its scabbard, drove it into the ground and knelt behind it.

"Richard Castle, please accept me into your company of adventures. I swear to follow you and be your sworn man. Until the death of us all."

"Until the death of us all." Castle repeated. "But now, put your sword away and get your rifle. Things in this company of adventurers can get dangerous very quickly."

"Comrade Platoon Leader Castle." Anber said. "They, whoever they are, have sent more supplies, including ammo."

Castle thought for a moment.

"I'm sure we're on Earth, but where I don't know. Those are pines, but I think pines are all over the northern hemisphere. We could be in America, Europe, Russia, China, North Korea or a lot of places. Collect the supplies, distribute them and put what we can't carry with the quad-cycle and trailer. Any spare weapons, ammo and gear goes there too. Then we'll try to find out where we are."

In ten minutes, they were ready to go. Castle saw Corporal Jhana running towards a break in the trees. She stopped, waved her arms and yelled.

"Come see. Come see."

They all ran to her and stopped. There below them was a small village consisting of a hundred neat little brick homes with thatch roofs with what looked like vegetable gardens behind and flowers in front. In the middle of the village were three larger two, and three-story brick buildings roofed in slate tiles.

The village sat at the edge of a small cove. Anchored in the cove were a dozen small sailing vessels, all gaily painted. Beyond them was a larger grey warship. Castle could clearly see a gun turret in the bow and smaller guns to port and starboard as well as other weapons on the stern.

Castle took out his binoculars. On a hill above the warship he saw field works and what looked very much like the muzzles of cannons.

"We're not on Earth." Jhana gushed. "This is my home village. We're in Morea. Look! There's my granny's ship, the _Blue Dancer_. And I can see smoke coming from the chimney of Auntie Roe's inn."

"What kind of a welcome are we likely to get from them?" Castle asked.

"The village is too small to have a House of the Men. Most of the women have only seen one or two men in their life and have probably never had a conversation with one. They'll totally freak out. But, once they settle down and realize you're humans from another planet and heavily armed soldiers as well, I'm not really sure what they'll do. Refer things up the chain of command, most likely."

Kate put her arm firmly around Castle.

"I don't care what the locals say. You're not going into the House of Men to impregnate their women. You're mine."

There was an affirmative growl from the rest of the women, even the Moreans. Especially the Moreans.

"Excuse me, sor." Sergeant Grant said.

"I'm not a sir, Grant. I work for a living."

"Ah'd thought you wiz called a platoon commander. An officer."

"No, I'm a staff sergeant, US Army."

"That said, dealin' wi' the chain o' command ye might want ta bump yer rank oop a bit. Most Iikely they'll nae think much of a sar'nt, like mos' bloody buroocrats. An' ye do command sumpin near a company."

Before Castle could say a word, Theokrates Kanakredes spoke in a voice like a thunderstorm. "Excellent Idea. He's the leader of our band of adventurers. He _should_ be a captain. How say all of you?"

The whole group cheered and Castle became a captain, like it or not.

He turned to Alice.

"I thought we were supposed to go home? Our home. Not theirs."

The redhead shrugged.

"That's what I was told. I have no idea of what happened."

Castle nodded and looked back at his troops.

"Okay. We'll head down there and see what's happening. Moreans, take the point so they'll see who you are. Move out."

And so, Castle and his troops marched down the hill and began their next adventure.

THE END, FOR NOW

**Author's note: I was just having too much fun with this to send everyone back to their home planets. I have some ideas for the sequel, but that'll be a while. In the meantime, I have ideas for a couple of shorter stories featuring Caskett and their friends. And the beginning of the next installment of the adventures of Lord and Lady Castle in the Italian Renaissance. Now I just need a middle and an end. I also want to do more of Special Forces Major Rick Rodgers and his wife, archeologist Kate Beckett, and Captain Kate Beckett, the pirate. I need to type a lot faster. **

**Author's note #2. I've finished After Boom, a two parter, and will post part one tomorrow.**


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